Stack Extends Streak; BGP Extends Skid
Paul McRae
Nov 20, 2002
November 20, 2002
After a fiery, white-hot Week 5, the players on both the IP Stack
and BGP appeared to have reattached themselves to planet Earth for Weeks
6 and 7 and have since played a less volatile and more professional style
of football. Even Pablo Frank’s
snap factor was significantly lower in Week 8’s game as, in his perpetually
desperate quest for finding an escape hatch for BGP’s mounting losing streak,
he now seems to have toned down his shrieking cacophony of blame which thus
far has blamed losing on the rules, the lighting, the phase of the moon,
and even gravity itself.
Following a humdrum and unexciting Week 7, this game came packed with
nail-biting tension and was close the whole way. The Stack opened the scoring
with a TD catch in the left corner by Sean Hope, who was under the tight
scrutiny of Frank. Paul McRae,
the steady QB he has been through and through, made the throw to Hope that
put the Stack up 1-0. Then, Hope caught one just past midfield and did
the rest himself as he put a couple of sharp moves on BGP defenders and ran
it in for the score. 2-0 Stack. Things looked good for the orange-clad
Stack, who played a solid first half with focused, unblinking defense, until
they let matters go to their heads. It is a constant source of amazement
how IP Stack fails to shut the door on its opposition late in games, having
a long history of squandering big leads and allowing opponents to climb back
in and make for cliff-hanger finales.
The BGP comeback began when Greg did some fancy running of his own
after the catch eluding Kirk Ireland and Paul Bertels to make it into the
red zone and cut the Stack lead in half. Then, late in the game, with the
Stack’s tenuous toehold on this game beginning to slip, newcomer Mike caught
a pass from BGP QB Mike Ciancibello
to even the game at 2. A valuable pick up, Mike is not your typical BGP
shmo who has aspirations way beyond his capabilities – no, he wasted little
time showcasing his true talent in this, his league debut.
Tied 2-2, the Stackers were shocked as they watched another relatively
safe lead wither away. McRae angrily blew off some steam with these bad
vibes: “If I see another lead like this evaporate, somebody’s gonna be benched
and it ain’t gonna be me!” Tom Szczerbowski,
closely listening to his slightly overheated QB, tried to pacify matters
when he put a positive spin on the internal bickering going on within his
team when he said after the game, “You know, we all like McRae and he IS
our leader. Sure he’s a snarling, cynical, wisecracking s.o.b., but we all
love him just the same and you guys should take note that our team chemistry
is as sound as ever.”
In the final drive of the game, McRae, with Pythagorean precision,
launched a strike in the end zone to Szczerbowski who dropped a sure game-winner
under the close, swarming defense of the aforesaid Mike. The pulse-pounding
action in the dying seconds finally came to an abrupt halt when McRae this
time hit Szczerbowski, who had to make a tricky catch under the unrelenting
surveillance of Mike in the end zone in a spectacular finish that sunk BGP
hopes of breaking out of a 4-week winless funk. Stack upped its record
to 7-1. A frustrated Frank said, “What more can we do??? I mean, there
was tighter surveillance on Szczerbowski on those two plays than when I tried
to smuggle some hashish across the Turkish border years ago. Damn, what was
I thinking then ?!!”
--Tom Szczerbowski
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