September 13, 2019: Rustin Golden Knights at Oxford Hornets Football Game

Summary: Congratulations to the Rustin Golden Knights football team for their 46-23 win over the Oxford Hornets on Friday, and to the Rustin Golden Knights marching band for another successful halftime performance. This post contains a photo essay from the game.

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Original photo taken by @remlaps

I was nervous when arriving at Friday's game. I thought I got there in plenty of time, arriving at the Oxford Area High School at about 6:10 for a 6:30 pre-game show, but I was in for an unpleasant surprise when I learned that Oxford's football stadium is not collocated with their high school. So, I drove down the road for a while, but didn't see anything that looked like a football stadium, and then turned around and went back to the high school to see if I had somehow missed it. This time, as I drove through the high school parking lot I happened to notice stadium lights off in the distance in a different direction. Fortunately, I was able to guess which road to turn on to find the stadium, and got to my seat just minutes before Oxford's pre-game show.

Game night followed the usual schedule this time, with Oxford's marching band performing a pre-game show followed by 2 quarters of football and a half-time performance by Rustin's marching band, then 2 more quarters of football leading up to a 46-23 victory by Rustin's Golden Knights. (Note that it was not 46-23 Oxford, as is currently indicated on maxpreps.com).

After Rustin's loss to Kennett, the Golden Knights' state rank on maxpreps dropped from 49 to 131 and their national rank dropped from 1,775 to 3,804. We'll have to wait 'til later in the week for maxpreps to fix their score and update the rankings to find out what happens after this week-end's activities.

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Here is the box score

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Team	Location	Name	Q1	Q2	1st Half	Q3	Q4	2nd Half	Final
Rustin	Visitor	Golden Knights	13	7	20	12	14	26	46
Oxford	Home	Hornets	6	7	13	2	8	10	23

The remainder of the post contains a photo-essay from the game. As it gets later in the year, darkness is closing earlier, so I'm having a harder and harder time getting good pictures with my autofocus camera, but hopefully some are ok.

Unless otherwise noted, all images are original photos that were taken by @remlaps.

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Marching Bands

We saw something with Oxford's band that we don't see at many schools. Several members of the band, judging by their uniforms at least, were also football players and cheerleaders. Another noteworthy aspect of Oxford's band is that they had a large number of participants.

As noted in a previous week, Rustin's show for this year is called, Descent into madness, and it includes Green Day's Basket Case, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Stadium audiences are always enthusiastic when Bohemian Rhapsody is announced and performed.

Pre-game: Oxford Hornets Marching Band

Half Time: Rustin Golden Knights Marching Band

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Football

Although the score might hint otherwise, the game was actually exciting. Both teams had decent success moving the ball, Rustin with a strong ground game, and Oxford with a significant deep passing threat. Oxford's quarterback, #14, took most plays out of a shotgun, and he connected a good number of throws. Rustin's defense made strong stops at critical moments, though, with #1 and #67 being recognized for their tackling.

Rustin's #7 was injured in the first quarter, and spent the rest of the game on the sidelines with crutches and a soft-cast on his leg, so we wish him a speedy recovery. A new person carrying the ball this week was Rustin's #21, who had a number of good carries, and as usual #8 had a good night, too. He has been amazing at finding invisible holes and zipping right through them since 7th grade, and probably before.

As noted above, I'm struggling with night-time photography and the auto-focus lens, but here are some photos that aren't too bad... Rustin is in the white uniforms.

Trivia: For the fourth straight week (I think), Rustin won the coin toss, deferred, and wound up kicking off to start the game. This is not the opening kick-off...

Win or lose, the official end of every Rustin football game is when the band plays the school Alma Mater

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Cheerleading

Last night I was too slow with the camera to get photos of them in pyramids or doing back flips...

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Music in the stands

Oxford

Rustin

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The game was exciting, the marching band performances were excellent, and the weather was comfortable. If there were any complaints to be had, it would be the frustrations that some in the stands expressed towards the referees, but I'll bite my tongue on that subject. After Friday's win, Rustin should be 3-1 on the season (although maxpreps currently shows them at 2-2 with an incorrect loss to Oxford noted)

Next week for Rustin is a home game against Avon Grove High School. Before this week-end's games, maxpreps had Avon Grove ranked at 288 in the state, and currently shows them with 1 win and 3 losses. You can check back later in the week for updates or corrections.

Update: I just noticed that maxpreps has a ranking of Pennsylvania's class AAAAA schools. Not sure if this is a new ranking, or if I just never noticed it before, but in that ranking Rustin is #31 out of about 101.

Presumably, it has not factored in Friday's win yet.

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The @rgkmb-unofficial account is an experimental account that is operated by Steve Palmer (@remlaps). The account's purpose is to demonstrate the viability of a fund-raising model that is based on use of the Steem block chain in the community. For more information, see our introductory post: Introducing Steem to the Rustin Golden Knights Marching Band

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Thank you for your time and attention.

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Posted by Steve Palmer (@remlaps)