The Daily Pooch Punt: 4/18/08
Call Fort Defiance’s Derek Uhler athletic. That was pretty evident Thursday as the Indian goalkeeper made some great diving stops at Stuarts Draft.
Call him one heck of a goalkeeper, which he obviously is.
Actually, you can go ahead and call him whatever the heck you want to be honest (you know, given that whole “free speech” thing and such). But there’s one thing you don’t want to call Uhler — scared.
Because if there’s one thing out there that soccer fans should know (and you probably do already) it’s that Stuarts Draft is big, much bigger (and talented for that matter) than its 1-2 Southern Valley record shows. And Uhler, despite constant attacks from the bigger Cougars, never backed down and got the shutout he wanted.
“They’re bigger than I’m used to,” he said. “But I wanted the shutout.”
See, now would we lie to you?
And another thing: Let’s talk about little about Draft boys soccer, a team with enough seniors to fill up a Thursday night bowling league that, for some reason or another, can’t pick up more than one Southern Valley win three matches into the season. Maybe coach Chris Loomis was right and knew something the rest of us didn’t when he told us to keep our Umbros on when you look at his team’s potential and that the Cougars hadn’t won anything yet. The bottom line is, and let’s be honest here, if the Cougars want to prove they can match up with the best in the district, they have to beat Waynesboro. The next time Waynesboro and Draft lock up is April 29 and, as Waynesboro coach Bill Meicke said after his team beat the Cougars 4-1 on April 7, “Next time, we have to play them at their place.”
Sure, the smaller field may cause problems for a Little Giants squad used to playing matches on its expansive and palatial pitch (the Cougars don’t have a separate soccer field like Waynesboro, they have to kick it old school, so to speak, on the football field), but we may be expecting more of the same in the second match.
When Stuarts Draft lost to the Little Giants in baseball Tuesday, two-out hits were the issue — the Cougars couldn’t get any. In their 12-0 loss to Fort Defiance on Thursday, just getting a hit was a problem Yep, Daniel “Righty” Wright tossed a five-inning no-hitter and, with the loss, this Southern Valley District baseball race is down to just two horses — Fort and Waynesboro — unless Josh Podgorski, a good baseball mind, can figure out what is wrong. Which, at this point, appears to be hitting, hitting and more hitting. Oh, and defense too.
Daniel “Righty” Wright, your table is ready.
Say What?
After playing for Waynesboro baseball for 4 years, I never felt more of a rivalry then I did when we matched up with TA. It was always TA vs. Waynesboro and thats how it was. 5-4 with Jake Peeling on the mound last year, what a hell of a game.
-- Anonymous
Last’s year’s game as Waynes-boro was a hell of a game, you’re right. You see, “James” (a previous poster who laughed at the notion that Turner Ashby and Waynes-boro were rivals), it doesn’t matter how many times a team loses to another, if they want to beat each other and, while they respect each other, don’t like the other team, then it’s called a rivalry.
Oh, speaking of “James.”
jim sacco you are probably one of the worst sports writers i have witnessed.
-- James
Then you don’t get out much. Actually, there are a lot of other things I’m much worse at. I still haven’t finished Final Fantasy VIII and that came out, what, like 8 years ago? I also leave the toilet seat up which probably makes me the worst husband in the world. So yeah, thanks for playing, “James.”
Finally: Wow. If this ever happens in Augusta County or the two cities, I will lose all faith in humanity and sports and “James” can have my blog.
That is all.