Prey Pounces Hunter

Alexander beat Attica last night in a high-school football game.

This is no big deal to most of humanity. Unless you attended one of the two schools.

Especially Alexander.

Alexander and Attica are rivals, in the sense that the zebra and the lion are rivals. And last night, the zebra devoured the lion.

To the best of my knowledge, as well as everyone surveyed at last night's Homecoming game, the last time this freakish reversal occurred was 1992. The last time before that was 1984, preceded by 1977 and 1964.

And that's it.

The dominance is certainly not due to any sort of physical, moral or mental superiority, but a matter of numbers. According to greatschools.org, Attica has 513 students in grades 9-12. Alexander has 514 -- in grades 6-12.

So the rivalry is purely geographical. In more populous areas, schools do not play football against another school roughly half its size every single year, then act like pounding the little guy is some sort of great accomplishment.

But that's Attica for you.

I was on the sideline for the 1977 win by the Trojans (yes, this nickname led to many, many jokes by our opponents and their fans, including Attica students showing up for our meeting on their field in 1985, my senior year, wearing garbage bags and derisively chanting "Rubber Tech" at us), standing with my father. He played for Alexander in the 1950s, including two years of six-man football. The Blue Devils (leave it to Attica to have an even more ridiculous nickname than "Trojans") walloped Alexander 20-0 in 1957, when he was a senior.

I was a junior at Alexander for the '84 upset. This may or may not be a coincidence, but it was the only season I did not play football in high school, since I thought serving as student council president would take much more time and commitment than it actually did. Or at least than I actually put into it.

In any event, three other quasi-jocks and I joined the cheerleading squad for several home games, including the Attica contest. Not dressed as traditional male cheerleaders, mind you, doing relatively butch stuff like lifting the girls in the air and whatnot, but in skirts and sweaters, waving pom-poms and doing leg-kicks.

Anyway, I returned to the active varsity roster a year later, and we got our teeth kicked in by Attica in the aforementioned garbage-bag game -- 32-8, as I recall.

Last night, I watched much of the game with one of a couple of guys who wore football uniforms, rather than cheerleading garb, during that '84 victory -- first Steve Sojda, a star running back who is now a member of the school board, and then Dave Wozniak, a towering two-way tackle. Meanwhile, my son, Jackson, spent the evening with a bunch of other 10-year-olds, chasing each other around the hills leading down to the temporarily lit field.

The first half was rather familiar to anyone who attended Alexander, or who regularly watches the Buffalo Bills play the professional version of the sport. The Trojans bottled up Attica's star running back, Matt Perry -- who had scored 13 touchdowns in the Blue Devils' first three games -- while their offense moved the ball up and down the field.

But Alexander faltered near the goal line, Attica got a late touchdown, and it was 7-0 at intermission.

This is where the Trojans (at least the editions I was involved with) or the Bills would normally be expected to experience a crisis of confidence and proceed to get their teeth kicked in.

Not this time, though. Alexander scored three straight touchdowns -- two of them by its own star running back, Dylan Scharlau (the son of one of my basketball teammates at Alexander, pictured on a first-quarter carry) -- to take a 22-7 lead early in the fourth quarter.

"There's still a lot of time left," Dave said, expressing what I and every other person wearing green and/or gold was thinking.

But when Attica inevitably pulled within seven points on its next possession, the Trojans calmly added another touchdown to put the game away.

Zebra 30, Lion 15.

On behalf of everyone who was ever on the green-and-gold side when things went the other way, I have three simple words.

Eat it, Attica.