Countdown to the Showdown

Monday, October 26, 2009

Saturday afternoon at Frary Field, one of the biggest games in Fort Scott Community College football history will take place. It's not quite as big as the 1970 National Championship game or the two following years when the Greyhounds finished as national runners-up. But success in this game could be the first step on the path to a possible fourth championship game appearance.

On page 9 of today's issue is a summary of the Greyhounds most-recent game, a 48-28 victory over Air Force Prep that took place Friday in Colorado Springs (the long trip back home being the main reason the summary could not appear sooner).

Over the next three issues, Wednesday through Friday, FSCC Sports Information will be providing several stories about players on the team and about the match-up itself, a battle between the Greyhounds, ranked No. 3 in the country, and the visiting Butler Grizzlies, who are ranked No. 4. In fact, this weekend is a perfect storm in sorting out the contenders for the National Junior College Athletic Association championship as, two hours after the 'Hounds and Grizzlies kick off, No. 1-ranked Blinn and No. 2 Navarro will face each other on Navarro's home field in Corsicana, Texas.

Saturday, in essence, is the first round of a two-leg national semifinal. That's because both the Jayhawk Conference, of which Fort Scott and Butler are members, and the Southwest Junior College Football Conference, where Blinn and Navarro play, have four-team post-season playoffs.

These exact same match-ups could happen again two weeks from Saturday. The SWJCFC championship game will be played Nov. 14 with the Jayhawk Conference championship game the following day.

It's almost difficult to believe now that at the beginning of the 2006 season, the Greyhounds were 0-2 and had just lost their 24th consecutive game. Since then, Fort Scott Community College's Greyhounds have won 32 of 40 games. In regular-season games, they've been winners in 29 of the last 32 games. And they haven't lost in their last 13 regular-season games at Frary Field.

Saturday's game kicks off at 1 p.m. but other pre-game festivities will take place beginning at about 10 a.m.