Archive for November 2011

NYSSO Mid-States ChampionshipTournament

The 5th grade Phillipsburg Cowboys wrapped up the 2011 season in Lawrence, KS on November 5th and 6th at the NYSSO Mid-States Championship tournament by finishing in 4th place in the A bracket.

The first game was with the Junction City Jr. Jays and ended with a winning score of 6 – 0 in overtime on Saturday morning. It was a hard-fought game against a very physical Junction City team that is the Flint Hills Youth Football League Champions in the 5th grade division. Junction City gave us quite a battle in the first game of the tournament, but true to form, our players responded well and earned a victory.

The second game was on Saturday around noon with the Topeka Blue Thunder that ended up in a 12 – 14 loss in overtime. The game was tied up 6 – 6 in regulation, so the Cowboys had to go into overtime for the second time in the same day. The first game took a little more out of our players than they would admit to, a few of the players were pretty sore from the first game and it affected us, especially going into overtime. But, they rose to the challenge, never quit and played hard as a team until the end and that is all we can ask from them. We had several players that stepped up when they were needed to fill in on their backup positions and they performed exceptionally. The Topeka Blue Thunder was the eventual champion winning in triple overtime against the Lawrence Hurricanes.

The third game was a loss resulting in a 4th place finish on Sunday morning against the Topeka Crush with a final score of 28 – 38 with the Cowboys driving towards the Crush end zone late in the 4th quarter. We had a slow start against the Crush and got behind early but were able to make some adjustments at halftime that helped us have more success in the second half. We played well against a good Crush team that made us defend the whole field with an effective running and passing game. Again we had some players who did a great job filling in on backup positions. The Cowboys fought until the very end and overcame adversity to finish strong.

We are proud of all the players who played very well as a team at the tournament. Going to a high-level tournament and playing well against very good teams from much larger towns speaks volumes for our small-town program from Phillipsburg. We knew that going into the A bracket this year would be a huge challenge for us, but the team was ready to accept the challenge and played very well. We received a lot of positive comments about our players, fans, and program while at the tournament. The Cowboys represented our community, program, and league as true Champions.

The 5th grade Phillipsburg Cowboys ended the 2011 season at 10 – 2, outscoring their opponents 274 – 72 with 52 of those opponents points coming in the final two games. We are looking forward to another exciting season of Phillipsburg Cowboy football in 2012!

We would like to thank the communities, our sponsors, families, and parents for all the support for the program this season.
Coach Sauer