At the North Area Athletic Complex on Friday afternoon, the Standley Lake Gators took on the Patriot’s from George Washington High School. After the snow game the night before, I dressed a little warmer for this game, but it was still not enough. I shot the first 3 quarters of this game before heading home to grab more cold weather gear, my flash for the late game, and take care of mom for dinner.
This was a tough game to shoot. This game was late in the season, so, even with a 4pm start, the sun was starting to go down, so, you have to deal with backlighting, shadows, harsh direct light, and then the clouds would roll in and out, so, exposures were all over the place and the shoot was not easy. The above photo shows how tough backlighting can be to photograph in. I could have brought my flash for this game and used it for fill light, but I felt that would have been even more of a pain balancing the exposure for the flash and sun. I shot all over the field. I like shooting on the away side of the stadium, because the home team usually has more fans and if I get a shot that has the bleachers in the background, I would rather they not be empty. George Washington have like 4 people in the stands. So, while the light forced me onto the home team side for some of the game, I spent most of my time on the away side.
Now, I have shot some small football programs, and I have shot some big programs. Most of the teams that I have shot that had small programs were in Alaska. I never expected to see a team from Denver show up with 23 kids on their varsity team. That is crazy. One injury could end your program real quick. George Washington was totally overmatched, but they had a few good plays. Another 10-15 kids in their program, they would be a tough opponent.
Amazingly for GW, the above shot was not ruled roughing the passer, because the Standley Lake QB took a shot. But the above photo shows you something about this team from George Washington High School. They never give up. Even down 35 to 6 at halftime, they were fighting for the ball each and every play.
But with a lack of back up players to give starters a rest, George Washington was facing an uphill battle that they were not going to be able to overcome. Even after busting out a 85 yard kick return in the first quarter, while the excitement and energy was there, the team just was not big enough to capitalize on the momentum.
This was an important game for Standley Lake to win, with everything going on in Arvada/Westminster recently, and some of it tied to a former Standley Lake Student. With all that was going on recently, a win would be something positive for the Gators to look at. Standley Lake went into this game with a 6 and 2 record, and with this game and one more to on November 1st, they needed to win this game to go to 7-2 before facing the tough Monarch team who is 8-1 on the season.
Earlier in the season, Standley Lake suffered a tough loss to Broomfield 28-17 and Monarch is coming off of a 42 to 7 shellacking of Broomfield. If Standley Lake could keep GW at bay in this game, and some how raise their game and beat Monarch, Monarch and Standley Lake would enter the playoffs with the same 8-2 record.
George Washington came out with tough defense in the second half. After giving up 5 touchdowns in the first half they held Standley Lake to only one touchdown in the third, and one in the fourth, but unfortunately for the Patriots, they could only muster one touchdown in the second half off of a 53 yard run in the 4th quarter. The Lake would have their win, defeating George Washington 49 to 14.
To view more photos from this game, please visit MaxPreps
