The opening kickoff of a football game always has a sense of anticipation, excitement. The anticipated this kickoff like none other.
For about three full days.
The Wildcats had to wait that long to complete a wild, wacky game they ended up winning against Washburn Academy out of Dunedin.
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The final score? Your ordinary 67-57. But that was only part of the wildness and wackiness. The lights went out last Friday night at the with 2:41 left in the game and the score 61-57. Hence the three-day wait for the game to be resumed.
"That 2:41 drove me nuts," said Wildcats head coach John Castelamare. "The main question was would Washburn onside kick it, then I knew they had two timeouts left so... a lot of time went into thinking about that onside kick."
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Sure enough the visitors, a first-year football program from the Dunedin school, went with the onside kick option - but that didn't go so smoothly. The ball travelled only six yards and the Wildcats smartly did not field it.
Anyone who had been at the park Friday night knew what was coming next. Academy running back Jarrett Harvey got the ball on every play, and 70 yards later he scored a touchdown to put the contest away.
It was Harvey's ninth touchdown of the game. He ran for 345 yards in the game.
The first version of Washburn's kickoff turned out to be the end of the Friday festivities. The lights went out right when the ball was kicked.
"No one knew where that thing went," said Castelamare.
Efforts to get the lights turned back on failed, and the game had to be continued to Tuesday; by stae rule contests are not allowed to continue on Mondays.
Washburn had mounted a comeback from a 34-7 deficit. The onslaught of points is not terribly unusual as the Wildcats play six-man football.
"The tricky part is the player who fields the snap from center can't cross the line of scrimmage. So what you have to do is snap it to a back and have him hand off to the quarterback. It's football and I love it," said Castelamare.
Kicks are also a different proposition. Since the six-man alignment makes it easy to run the ball two yards, teams are actually encouraged to kick extra points, which are worth two.
Next up for the Wildcats is a 4 p.m. kickoff at Hernando Christian on Friday. On Sept. 30, Oasis Charter School (Cape Coral) visits AATL.
The win over Washburn set AATL's record at 3-0 on the season.
