September 20, 2019: Avon Grove Red Devils at Rustin Golden Knights Football Game

Summary: Congratulations to the Golden Knights for their 4-1 record after a 28-14 win over Avon Grove, and to the Golden Knights Marching Band for another fantastic half-time performance. This post contains a photo-essay from the game.

Original photo taken by @remlaps

The big thing for the marching band at Friday's game was the visiting 5th graders. This is something that has now become an annual tradition, where the elementary school kids get to experience the fun of sitting in the stands with the marching band and playing "pep music." It's fun for the 5th graders, and it's fun for the high schoolers, too, because they get to lead the younger kids and also see music teachers from their own childhoods.

For on-field performances, it seems like usually the home team plays the pre-game show and the visiting team plays half time, but it didn't go that way this time. This time, Avon Grove played the pre-game show and Rustin played for half time.

Something unusual for this week's football game is that it was livestreamed by chessmontfootball. As a result, the full game video can now be seen here:

One of the first things I checked was to see if #7 was still on crutches after his injury last week. I was happy to see that he was not, although he spent the night on the sidelines, so I guess he must still be healing.

The game started off as a defensive battle, with the first quarter ending 0-0, and the second ending 15-7. Both of the offenses were able to open up as the game progressed, but despite some good efforts Avon Grove was never able to reclaim their lead after a brief time in the 2^nd quarter when the score was 7-6.

Here is the box score

Team	Location	Name	Q1	Q2	1st Half	Q3	Q4	2nd Half	Final
Avon Grove	Visitor	Red Devils	0	7	7	0	7	7	14
Rustin	Home	Golden Knights	0	15	15	7	6	13	28

As darkness continues to fall earlier, it's getting harder and harder to get the camera focus, but the remainder of this post contains some photos that I was able to get from the stands.

Unless otherwise noted, all images are original photos that were taken by @remlaps.

Marching Band

As in previous weeks, Rustin's show was called, "Descent into madness," and it featured Green Day's Basket Case, Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. The show was preceded by some technical difficulties with the portable on-field sound system, but once it got going, it was fantastic.

Here are photos from both bands' shows.

Avon Grove - Pregame

Rustin - half time

I positioned myself to the right of the field in order to get a different perspective for this week, but that turned out to be a bad idea, since the drum major's stand wound up right in front of me and blocked much of my view. By the time I realized this, the fence was too crowded to get closer to the center.

It does mean that I got more close-ups than usual, though.

And I took this photo, just 'cause I thought the fog looked cool in the stadium lights...

Football

As usual, Rustin's #8 had a great night carrying the ball, and as with last week, so did #21. If the team's game had any shortcomings, it was in the number of penalties that were called, especially in situations where they changed the flow of the game by delivering a first down or critical field position to the opponent.

On defense, #1 again made some good stops.

Rustin is wearing the blue & gold

Cheerleading

Stands Music from the marching bands

Avon Grove

Rustin

Last week, the football team's national rank (according to maxpreps.com fell from 3804 to 3815, the state-wide rank gained from 131 to 124, and their class AAAAA rank improved from 31 to 29. We'll have to see what happens later in the week, after Friday's action is factored in.

Update: As-of Monday, Rustin football's ranking shows improvement at all levels: National - 3519, State - 110, Class AAAAA - 28. For some reason, they're still showing the team's record at 3-1, though.

Next week's game is against Coatesville. Not to be a "Debbie Downer," but according to maxpreps, Coatesville was ranked #8 in the state going into Friday night's game, with their only loss this year delivered by #3 ranked, Harrisburg. Also, Coatesville won last year's game, 52-21. If the team continues training hard, anything is possible, but Coatesville is a tough challenge for any opponent.

And here is the rest of the 2019 schedule for the marching band

Saturday Competitions: (ALL)

9/28: USBands Competition @ Boyertown
10/19: PA State Championships @ WCU
10/26: HOME SHOW!!! USBANDS REGIONAL @ Rustin
11/2: USBands A Class National Championships (Allentown)

Parades: (All) Times TBD

7/4: Thornbury Delco 4th of July Parade
10/23: West Chester Halloween Parade
11/10: West Chester Veteran’s Day Parade
12/6: West Chester Old Fashioned Christmas Parade

Here's the full 2019 football schedule: all games are at 7pm

8/23 - AWAY @ Sun Valley - Rustin 53 / Sun Valley 7 (W)
8/30 - HOME vs Great Valley - Rustin 47 / Great Valley 7 (W)
9/6 - HOME vs Kennett - Rustin 7 / Kennett 12 (L)
9/13 - AWAY @ Oxford - Rustin 46 / Oxford 23 (W)
9/20 - HOME vs Avon Grove - Rustin 28 / Avon Grove 14 (W)
9/27 - HOME vs Coatesville
10/4 - AWAY vs Chichester
10/11 - HOMECOMING vs Unionville
10/18 - HOME vs WC East
10/25 - HOME vs WC Henderson
PLAYOFFS - 11/1 and 11/8

The @rgkmb-unofficial account is an experimental account that is operated by Steve Palmer (@remlaps). The account's purpose is to demonstrate the viability of a fund-raising model that is based on use of the Steem block chain in the community. For more information, see our introductory post: Introducing Steem to the Rustin Golden Knights Marching Band

Thank you for your time and attention.