The case for declaring the Sept. 25 Zama @ ASIJ and Oct. 3 ASIJ @ Edgren games merely canceled: More than half the varsity is disabled by the H1N1 flu virus. In fact, more than half the ASIJ student body down with the flu are from the football teams, varsity and JV. It can't be helped. Nothing can be done about it. No way to reschedule the games because ASIJ can't play weekday games and has no more byes the rest of the season. These are special circumstances, the worst flu epidemic to hit a team in recent memory and the worst to plague ASIJ since it had to suspend operations after two games of the 1988 season.
The case for declaring the games forfeits: As coach Chris Waite of Edgren said, "Everybody's affected by the flu.
Week 6
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If anything, incidents of H1N1 flu virus increased, rather than decreased, over the last week at American School In Japan. Thus, school officials announced Thursday they would forego the football team's trip to Misawa Air Base on Saturday to play Robert D. Edgren, instead forfeiting the contest.
This follows on the heels of ASIJ canceling its Sept. 25 home date with Zama American. At Edgren, the reaction was an unhappy one; the Eagles had also been slated to host Kadena, but the price tag of the round-trip ticket was too rich for Kadena. Thus, Edgren has a three-week gap in its schedule.
"We're upset here, too," ASIJ athletics director John Smith said. "But there's nothing you can do about it. It's out of our hands.
SportsBlog attempted this last spring, and we're firing it up again: If you had your pick of your high school's best four athletes of the past 25 years to form your school's personal sports Mount Rushmore, who would you take?
Let's see if we can build a Mount Rushmore for each school by mid-November, at the tail end of the fall sports season.
Select who you think are the best four athletes at your high school over the past quarter century.
Musings, mutterings and the occasional schmahts as we chug headlong into midseason report card territory and Yokota-Zama 2.0:
-- Those Daegu American Warriors are for real, all right. What was supposed to be a close, tight battle with Osan American became anything but. Helped along by 11 Cougars fumbles, Daegu used a balanced attack, Antoine Feagin 167 yards and a touchdown on 15 carries, Trey Griffin tossing a TD pass and Josh Gosserand snagging two scoring passes in a 37-14 romp.
-- Daegu now has the hammer, only needing to win at Osan on Oct. 23 to don the host's tuxedo for this year's Far East Class A football title game on Nov. 7.
-- Osan's hypothesis: Stop Feagin.
-- Daegu American 37, Osan American 14. Warriors offense fired on all cylinders, took advantage of numerous Cougars errors. Center-to-QB-to-RB exchanges an issue for Osan.
-- Yokota 34, Nile C. Kinnick 6. Panthers break it open with three bang-bang touchdowns in closing minutes.
-- Guam High 33, Father Duenas Memorial 28. Aaron Cosey tosses four TD passes, Ed Cruz and R.J. Bryand stop Friars QB Will Williams cold on QB sneak with 30 seconds left. First time Panthers have beaten FDMS and Simon Sanchez in same season.
-- George Washington 44, Simon Sanchez 0; John F. Kennedy 22, Southern 0. Clear that the Geckos are head-and-shoulders above the rest of the league. Clear that the Islanders are back. And clear who the faces and have-nots are in the IFL.
Airmen ruled the day Thursday at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., where Air Force's men and women made it an All-Armed Forces Softball Tournament title sweep. But by the barest of margins.
Air Force, Navy and Army deadlocked at 6-3 atop the women's standings, forcing a run-differential tie-breaker. In games between each other Air Force had a plus-10 run differential, Army plus-6 and Navy -- which had led the tournament the first three days -- minus-16.
The men's tie-breaker was infinitely easier -- Air Force and Army each went 7-2, but the airmen beat the soldiers two of three times they played.
A quick update from the All-Armed Forces Softball Tournaments at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., shows two-time defending men's champion Army and women's champion Air Force in the driver's seat toward title three-peats, but by the barest of margins.
Army's men (6-1) are a game ahead of Air Force (5-2) with one game to play Thursday. Air Force holds the tiebreaker edge via run differential, having beaten Army 21-7 while Army beat Air Force in their first showdown 18-17.
Air Force women are tied with Navy at 5-2, but the airmen beat the sailors two of the three times they played. So, Navy must win both games it plays Thursday and get help from Army and/or the Marine Corps to beat Air Force for a shot at the title.
A rise in H1N1 influenza cases at American School In Japan has forced the postponement, and perhaps cancellation, of Friday's Zama American at ASIJ football contest. No makeup date was immediately announced, and officials at ASIJ didn't sound too optimistic that it would be. The schools don't have matching open dates the rest of the season. And playing a mid-week game is not an option for ASIJ, athletics director John Smith said.
