Tonight was Zachary’s first football game!  He was a little nervous but VERY excited!  We all went over to Knoch Park to watch.

When we got there, we saw the team that they were going to play…  The Browns.  They were huge!  It looked as if all but a couple were held back a few years.  Most of the kids on the team were at least 2-3 inches (if not more) taller than our kids, and outweighed our kids by at least 10-15 pounds.  There was one kid that was at least 50 pounds heaver than Zach!  We as parents were all a little nervous that our kids were going to get squashed, but we didn’t tell the kids as they seemed really excited and we didn’t want to make them any more nervous than they already were.

The kids had  a big paper banner that they broke through, with cheerleaders cheering on each side.  It was quite official…

The kids played their hearts out and actually did really well!  Zach got paired against the biggest guy on the team (the one that weighed at least 50 pounds more than him).  We were nervous about how he would do against a guy that was so much bigger, but he did really well!  The big kid was slower than Zach, so Zach got some good blocks on him.  Zach couldn’t push him out of the way, but he could stop him and that was all that was needed!

In the pic above, Zach is on the right (in orange) directly across from the really big kid.  Not a very even match-up, is it?  🙂

Zach didn’t get much of a breather (him above sitting on the bench while the other team has the ball) because the offense was out on the field most of the time.  🙂

In the end, our team lost by 1 touchdown in the last minutes of the game.  Final score was 35-28.  The kids had no reason to be sad as they really played well against a team that was so much bigger.  Turns out the other team didn’t play by the official league rules either, so our coaches let the league know for future games.  They had a tall, fast kid playing both ways, and they had their team running through the offensive line between the center and guard to get to the quarterback and running backs faster (illegal in this league at this age because they are slow at snapping the ball and getting more experience).

Great experience for the kids and at the end, they all got Broncos cups with candy, a football key chain, and other  and stuff in them, cupcakes, and bottles of Gatorade.  This was probably just as exciting for the kids as playing the game!  🙂

Great game Broncos!