Dorman 45, Clover 42 - Final

[Chuckster]

LOL!! I'll check with my boss (wife)... She has been a Friday night widow for the last 15 weeks...Let me see how many chips I have left to play....

I need to find out what happened to my Gators last night......Carolina Forest must be for real......

[DeCav]

Welp, we went toe to toe with the Cavs. Just came up short at the end. Super proud of my guys. Congrats to Dorman

Clover fans...

If ever there was a game where it would be appropriate to say it was a shame that one of the teams had to lose it was this game.

I would say you got nothing to hang your heads about but that would almost be an insult!

One of the QUICKEST and STRONGEST teams Dorman has EVER played. I've never seen a ballgame unfold with such instant and sustained fury!

You guys proved one thing beyond any shadow of a doubt to me....

Strength of schedule DOES NOT always point to the strongest team.

On any given play, all I ever saw the whole night was every player pushing themselves as hard as they could and giving 100%. Both teams left it all on the field. You couldn't have asked the Eagles to play any better. Not sure I've seen a brawl like that since the Goose Creek/Florida U game in '11 where it just started at 100% and neither team ever lost steam....except I think the defensive show last night that we saw from both squads was as equally impressive as the offensive show both teams brought to the stadium. Just a powder keg of a game. Better than the final battle in LOTR's Return Of The King! I can't remember seeing that much eye candy squeezed into ALL four quarters of one football game. I can't remember seeing that much diversity of approach displayed by two teams on a field.

Honestly, it felt like every other play was an ESPN highlight. There was not a lot that you did not get to see in this game! So many games have at least one quarter where the two opponents get locked up punting back and forth and the fans of both teams get anxious with this hurry up and wait....we can't let them hang around feeling. There was very little time for either team to despair or rejoice. What was so nuts about the back and forth flow of the game was that it was never chaotic. I think it was the 3rd quarter with two incredible quarterbacks just playing laser tag with their arms while displaying Sugar Ray Leonard like footwork all night long. And the only thing that ever interrupted either quarterback was when some other micro-battle on the play had been decided which then spilled over into their concerns and they had to think on their feet.

And the chess match going on between the two coaches just never eased up. There moments when it seemed like Lane and Gutshall were basically playing World Of Warcraft with the players. It's rare that a game has this many levels, depth, drama and story arcs. A few plays after Dorman's first pick, Clover got their first pick. It was an MMA style of combat...with strength, mass, balance, dexterity, grace, and just constant energy. There was never a lull!

It became a joke almost in the 4th quarter.....there were what? 6? 10? plays that literally everybody would stop and say this is gonna decide the game...except the next play would turn out the be the turning point....that is untill two plays later...but oh wait a second holy crap you're not supposed to keep getting back up!

At one point people in the crowd started laughing because after probably 3 times that are group were like, "OK....it all hinges here!"

And one team would make a GREAT play or put together yet another relentless drive that would put the game back in the undecided anyone can win this game category.

Eventually I just started shouting, "This is the play of the game!"....and 4 or 5 plays later I'd shout the same thing.....and then the next few plays and you could hear people laughing because the drama just got squeezed into a tighter and tighter time frame as the minutes ticked away and it got to the point where you just knew momentum could shift at any time not because of a mistake but because one player would be just 1/10th of a second faster or stronger than his counter part. It was impressive watching all the skirmishes on every play. The game had a fractal-like quality to me. You could watch the last three minutes of the game and get a 3 minutes version of what all 4 quarters were like. And like all great games, this one was a tense nail-biter all night long with it being a tug of war with neither team ever letting up and the needle would go this way for a while and then swing back that way....an offensive unit would just put on a clinic on one drive...and then get schooled on another drive buy a defense that was as good as the offense they were up against. Just a great story line all night long that climaxed into a fevered last two minutes. It just seemed like every skill was on display last night.

I will say I think the zebras definitely affected certain sub-plots of the game and I agree with Newcat, Clover seemed to be on the business end of the whistle more often than not and I wouldn't argue with anyone who said the stripes might have missed more offenses that Dorman committed than they did Clover but I have to say, Clover might have a costly penalty but they would find a way to overcome it. I think probably Clover should have won this game. They just seemed more in control of momentum for most of the night. I just felt like the Cavs were against the ropes most of the night and playing from behind, maybe because they didn't get the ball first? At one point we were down 13, the most either team had to make up all night. I really thought Clover was gonna pull this one out.

At 1:30 with the game tied and Clover with the ball...I thought it was curtains for us!

Way to go Cavs!

I gotta say...I'd rather be a Fort D fan now than a Clover fan. You forget the unwinnable games WAY quicker than you do the ones that were decided by a knife's edge. That game in '94 between Spartanburg and Dorman still sits in my gut with the missed PAT and hail mary pass.

You guys don't look like a flash in the pan either....what do you return next year? I think Clover just established themselves as the team to watch next season.

[DeCav]

"I told you so" face after Cover's first to drives.














Had an awesome night, all four of us laser focused on the action as Dorman lines up to attempt the winning FG!





We made it! The guy taking our picture said so! Newcat still thinks Clover won.