Rainy night in Denver, where Cocalico bumped off reigning District 3 Triple-A champ Lampeter-Strasburg 35-21 in the season opener for both teams Friday. Since I won’t be filing too many stories for the print editions anymore, my main gig Friday nights will be blogging live from games. And I hope you were able to check out the live blog over at L-L League Insider at lancsports.com. What I’ll likely do after games on Fridays is put together some sort of story or feature on the star of the game. And that went to Cocalico’s Kyle Fisher, who was up to his old tricks Friday against L-S. I’ll post those here and at lancsports.com.
It was easily my favorite quote from Media Day.
“When he’s on the field, you have to find him,” Cocalico coach Dave Gingrich said about his prized – and fast – senior running back, Kyle Fisher.
“You have to account for him, because every time he touches the ball, he could be gone. I don’t think there’s a kid in this league who can catch him.”
With 7:08 to go in the first quarter Friday night, Gingrich’s quote rang true.
After taking a simple pitch from junior quarterback Matt Carty, Fisher – the reigning L-L League 100, 200 and 400 sprint champ – got to the corner, side-stepped an oncoming linebacker, turned on the jets and raced 72 yards for a touchdown.
Nobody laid a finger on him.
It was Fisher’s second TD run of the game – he had a 5-yard score earlier in the half – and it gave the host Eagles the lead for good, 21-14, and Cocalico went on to top reigning District 3 Triple-A champ Lampeter-Strasburg 35-21 in a non-league showdown game on Opening Night in Denver.
“This means everything,” Fisher said after the game, standing on his home field with raindrops pelting down on him.
“We’ve been waiting to play these guys since they won the district championship last season. We all knew we could do this. And we did.”
Fisher also heaved a 59-yard TD pass to Kyle Rissell in the second quarter on a trick play for Cocalico, which topped L-S for the second year in a row.
Fisher, who rushed for 1,230 yards and 20 TDs last fall, finished the game with 139 rushing yards. He got dinged up in the second half and sat out the last few of the Eagles’ drives.
But he did plenty of damage while he was in there.
After getting a slew of preseason hype because of his track prowess last spring, Fisher was definitely as-advertised against L-S.
“We try to put Kyle in positions where we can get a hat on a hat and let him move,” Gingrich said after the game Friday. “And when he moves, he’s usually pretty good.”
Fisher was plenty good against L-S. It took him a couple of carries to get cranking, but once he found his groove, he was a handful to drag down.
His 72-yard TD run was a thing of beauty.
“I love that play,” Fisher said. “We used to run it a lot last year. I told the guys that if they could hold their blocks for like five seconds that I’d be gone. And they did.”
And Fisher fired up his afterburners and found that extra gear only he seems to have.
“I have a lot of confidence in the offensive line,” he said. “And I thought they all did a great job.”
Fisher’s TD pass electrified the home folks. He heaved a perfect strike to Rissell, who got wide open behind the Pioneers’ secondary. The play almost didn’t happen – not because the Eagles called an audible in the huddle; because Gingrich nearly canned the call in practice earlier in the week.
“We practiced that play on Thursday, and I threw the worst ball I’ve ever thrown in my entire life,” Fisher said. “Coach said that I was done, and that we weren’t going to run the play. I asked him to give me one more chance to do it in a game, and it worked out perfectly.”
It turned out to be a perfect night for Cocalico, which should get a ton of momentum out of this victory.
“This is huge,” Fisher said. “Winning the first game means a lot to the team. I really think we’ll build off this.”
