It was a crisp, cool evening in Spearfish Lake. The heat that had lain on the town in late July and early August had started to break right around the middle of the month, when a powerful cold front came through, spawning thunderstorms. Though it stayed warm for a while after that, it wasn’t the oppressive, energy-sapping blanket that had worn people down. By tonight, it had dialed back to where it was actually a little cooler than average for this time of the year, and already the hot days seemed far away. The sun was low in the western sky, lighting up the football field with its banners and flags; it would be setting in an hour or so. Not too much later in the year the game would be starting in full darkness, as the days were getting shorter rapidly now, but at least the first part of this game would be in daylight.

The newly repaired stands at Marlin Stadium, the Spearfish Lake High School football field, weren’t as full as some people could remember for the opening game of the season. Many people present could remember a time when Spearfish Lake had been a football presence in the league. The stands would be filled to overflowing on a home opener, especially on as nice an evening as this promised to be; later in the season, at least in the latitude of Spearfish Lake, watching a night football game could be a real exercise in endurance. Although people around Spearfish Lake were used to cold, it was always hard to take in the fall when no one was used to it.

But that was then; a number of elements had conspired to keep the stands something less than full when the home opener came to Spearfish Lake. The lackluster record of the Marlins for the last dozen years and more had a lot to do with that. Traditionally, the opening game was against the Coldwater Icebergs, a town well to the southeast. Once upon a time – back before Danny Evachevski had been a star running back for the Marlins – Coldwater had been a much smaller school, about the same size as Spearfish Lake. However, since those days Coldwater had merged with another smaller school, and although Spearfish Lake and Coldwater were still in the same league, Coldwater was in a much bigger class and there wasn’t a lot of favorable comparison. Indeed, the second-to-last time that Spearfish Lake had beaten Coldwater in the opening game, Danny had played in it. The drought had continued for a decade after that; the last time the Marlins had beaten the Icebergs had been thirteen years before, not merely on a fluke but on several of them. To be honest, no one expected anything much different this night.

In spite of the wholesale realignment of the varsity team earlier in the month, there were several members of the former varsity team, and some of their parents, watching it from the stands. At least some of them were expecting to see some kind of a slaughter that would lead to their being re-instated on the team for at least part of the season. That might help them regain some of the status they’d abruptly lost in the high school gym one hot day earlier in the month. But, when the subject had been raised among a few of them, it had been pretty well agreed that it was a long shot with a hard ass like Mrs. Wine as athletic director.

But there were at least a few parents, families and students present who might not have been there that evening, were it not for the junior varsity getting an unexpected promotion. Among them were Jack and Vixen, who were there with his parents, Jack and Barb, to see Howie’s first start as a Marlin varsity quarterback.

“Wow,” Vixen said as they found seats high in the bleachers, where they hoped the view would be better, and spread their blankets on a newly painted plank, “it sure seems strange to be here.”

“For sure,” Jack agreed. “I always figured I’d be in college somewhere before Howie was playing on varsity.”

“I guess we know what we’re going to be doing on Friday nights for the next few weeks,” she smirked.

“In a way, I hope so,” Jack sighed. “I’m mostly hoping he doesn’t get hurt so bad tonight that he won’t be able to play next week. If that’s the trade-off, I guess I’d just as soon keep going to football games on Friday nights.”

“At least that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about,” Summer spoke up from the row below them, where she and Alan were sitting with her parents, Rowan and Bob Trevetheck. “It’s kind of neat to see Autumn’s debut as a varsity cheerleader, but at least I don’t have to worry about her getting mauled by the opposing team in the process.”

“Yeah,” Jack said, “at least there’s that. I just hope this isn’t too much of a disaster.”

There were those not present at the game at all, and under the circumstances wouldn’t be caught dead there. Among them were Eddie Awkerman, Scotty Parsons, and Lanny Mundhenk, who had decided to drown their sorrows in root beer down at the Frostee Freeze. All would have preferred to be drinking some of the harder stuff, but it wasn’t a good idea under the circumstances. They weren’t even listening to the game on the radio; all they could do was sit on one of the picnic tables under the awning and gripe about the unfairness of the world in general. In another month or so the place would be closed for the season, and then they wouldn’t even have that for a place to hang out.

“This really sucks,” Eddie spouted off angrily. “If someone had just kept their fucking mouth shut we’d be out there. Now it’s like we don’t exist.”

“I’m not looking forward to going back to school,” Scotty shook his head. “Can you even imagine those little shits being treated like football players while we’re treated as a bunch of fucking losers?”

“It can’t be that bad,” Lanny stated. “We are seniors, after all, and they’re just a bunch of fucking freshmen and sophomores. They’re still going to have to give us some respect or they’re going to get their asses kicked.”

“I can’t believe they’re not going to get their asses well and truly kicked tonight,” Eddie sneered. “God, the Marlin junior varsity up against the ’Bergs? They’re going to be carrying those little shits off the field left and right.”

“I still think that come tomorrow there are people that are going to come crying to us for help,” Lanny snorted. “And I’ll tell you what, I ain’t too goddamn sure about how willing I’m going to be to help out, unless maybe they bring Coach Weilfahrt back. They fucking made their bed, let them fucking lie in it.”

Anissa Hodges was up in the press booth, where she’d been a fixture for years. Her primary job, of course, was to report on the game for the Record-Herald, but after the years she’d spent doing it she could have done it in her sleep. Beyond that, she usually did color commentary for the local radio station, at least to fill in some of the slow spots, like the last few minutes before the game began. Just now, she was making on-air conversation with Paul Braxton, the announcer.

“Anissa,” Braxton said, “the common wisdom seems to be that the Marlins are going to have their hands full tonight, especially considering the very limited experience of the players. Do you think the common wisdom is correct?”

“It’s really hard to say, Paul,” she replied. “There’s no question that they are definitely the underdogs against the Icebergs, but if you want my gut opinion, the game may not turn out to be as one-sided as everyone seems to think it will. There are several talented players on the Marlins, some of whom we haven’t seen before, and speaking strictly as an observer, Coach Kulwicki has done wonders in getting the team ready to play. We won’t know just how successful his efforts have been until we get into the game, and considering how much bigger a school Coldwater is, we may not know until next week. It would be nice to see the Marlins pull a rabbit out of their hats, since starting the season off with a win would be wonderful and would set a lot of the tone for the season, but it’s been a long time since the Marlins have managed that. Speaking for myself I’m just hoping to see a competent level of play.”

“Do you think the young Marlins are capable of that?”

“I’m pretty sure they are,” Anissa replied. “Over the last few weeks I’ve seen enthusiasm and dedication on the practice field that have been missing the last few years. The Marlin varsity players are aware they’re young and over-matched, but from what I’ve seen most of them know that they’ve got a point to prove, to show that they’re capable of stepping up and meeting the challenge. Expect to see the players play with a heart that we haven’t seen in recent years.”

“Well, I guess we’re going to find out pretty soon. The team captains and the officials are coming onto the field for the coin toss, so we’re not far away from game time.”

Mike Kovacs and Steve Sarmeinto walked onto the football field side by side. They’d been long-time friends and members of the same church. While they’d played football ever since seventh grade, they’d been mostly overlooked in the past, considered second-stringers at best, and looked down on because of their both being religious. The last thing either of them had expected, even after most of the seniors had been invited to leave the team, was to be elected team co-captains. It had been quarterback Howie Erikson who had pointed out to the team earlier in the afternoon that the two of them deserved the honor more than anyone else, because they had been the only senior football players to follow the rules.

It was a distinction that had been largely overlooked, even locally, but the members of the team apparently felt comfortable enough with the message that the vote electing the two co-captains had been unanimous.

The coin toss went quickly, which the Marlins won. As agreed ahead of time, Mike announced that the Marlins elected to defend the west goal so that they would kick off toward the east. Usually a team would elect to either receive or kick, but this was a special situation – the Icebergs would be looking for the ball in the direction of the setting sun, which might provide a bit of an edge. The Icebergs, wanting the ball right away, then elected to receive. With that out of the way, the two headed back to the bench, where they led a brief team prayer – something else that the Marlins hadn’t done in a long time, but only a few of the players gave it a pass. Then, it was time to get on the field for the kickoff.

“Kicking off for the Marlins will be senior kicker Lyle Angarrack,” Braxton said into the microphone. “Anissa, I don’t remember seeing him before.”

“Angarrack is new to the team this year,” Anissa explained. “He’s a senior and hasn’t previously played football, but he came out to lend a hand to the shorthanded team. He’s proved to be a good kicker and he doesn’t rattle easily.”

“He seems a lot bigger than the average Marlin player,” Braxton observed.

“He’s easily the biggest player on the team,” Anissa replied, keeping a little secret that Kulwicki had asked her to keep quiet. “Because of his relative lack of experience we probably won’t be seeing him much, but he’ll be doing most of the kicking. We may see him on the field in other situations from time to time.”

The team lined up across the field, then started downfield as the big kicker got the game under way.

“High, end-over-end kick,” Braxton said. “Boy, that’s a long one . . . it’s clear out of the end zone, so the action will get under way with the Icebergs on their own twenty.”

The fact that the Marlin football team was, for practical purposes, the Marlin junior varsity was a fact well known around the league. Iceberg Coach Tom Rudd was as aware of it as anyone, and secretly was thankful that his own players hadn’t been caught in a similar debacle. Well before the game started, he’d thought about the situation. He knew, of course, that he had a vastly superior team, and that gave him two choices. One of them was to start with his best players and put on the heat, in hopes of a quick mercy-kill win where a game against a devastated opponent is brought to a quick end; that would allow everyone to get started on the long bus trip home early. The alternative was to make good use of his second-string players, to give them some field experience and save the better players for later in the season.

The latter was the course he chose; he reasoned that if things got out of hand, he had the option to feed his better players into the game to get things back under control. Besides, he realized that the Marlins, who were no threat for the league championship, needed the field experience as bad as his younger players, and it was only the courteous and magnanimous thing to do.

But the starters were supposed to be starters, so he decided to let them play a series or two before bringing the younger kids onto the field. Like a lot of high school football teams, the Icebergs were primarily a running team and they liked to run to the inside. The starting senior quarterback took the snap, handed off to the starting senior halfback, who plowed into the fury of the line, where he was met by Marlin linebacker Rusty Frankovich, about the biggest Marlin on the field with Angarrack sitting on the bench. The net gain on the play was about a yard, and the second down produced no more.

College or professional football teams would normally pass on a third-and-long-yardage situation like this, but the Icebergs didn’t have much of a passing game, and so tried another run on the ground, at least this time on the side away from the big linebacker. This was a little more successful; they gained about three yards before the running back was dragged down by Marlin junior Chad Kimble and sophomore Brad Dollarhyde.

Now, early in the game, they were faced with a tough situation: fourth down and five to go, and still uncomfortably close to their own goal line. In only three plays Rudd had learned something he should have realized before this: considering the opposing coach was a former pro lineman, the Marlin interior line was going to be a treacherous place to try to run a play. So, on only the fourth play of the game, the Icebergs were forced to punt.

The Coldwater team didn’t have a kicker with anything like the talent Lyle Angarrack displayed. The punt was snagged by Marlin junior Jimmy Gogolen, probably the fastest player on the team; he managed to make it back to the Iceberg 45 before being boxed in and stopped.

There was some shuffling of players as the offensive and defensive teams on both sides switched. One of the decisions that had been made a long time before the game was that quarterback Howie Erikson was going to make an effective announcement that this wasn’t the Marlin team of old. Between Coaches Kulwicki, Reardon, and Evachevski, the Marlins were now playing a simplified West Coast offense from a very limited number of formations, but formations that could be used in several different ways. On the very first down, after Howie took the snap from Mike Kovacs, he faded back a couple yards while giving Jimmy Gogolin a chance to sprint downfield, then tossed a quick cross field pass to him. He made it to the Iceberg 32 yard line before being stopped.

“A pass on first down?” a surprised Braxton said into the microphone up in the press box. “That just isn’t done, but Erikson did it, so it’s now first and ten on the Iceberg 32.”

When the Icebergs lined up for the next play they weren’t quite sure what to expect, other than they now knew the young Marlin quarterback had an arm and wasn’t afraid to use it. This time, they lined up with an eye more toward pass protection, only to discover that Erikson handed the ball off to senior Steve Sarmeinto, who ran a conventional running play into the Iceberg line for a gain of short yardage.

Unfortunately, the promising drive came to nothing: two plays later, Erikson flipped a short pass to sophomore Glen Harpenski, who caught the ball but had it knocked loose almost instantly, and the Icebergs came up with the recovery.

By now, the Icebergs were beginning to get their feet under them. In ten conventional running plays, only some to the inside, they went from their own 25 yard line to the Marlin 35, but somehow were stopped there on a fourth down and three to go situation after their end got run out of bounds. With a first down that close and the running game established, it looked like the best way out of the situation was to try to run the ball instead of punting. It took a while for everyone to line up again. It had already been decided to run a quarterback option play to the right, but the Iceberg quarterback looked up and saw the size of the linebacker who had just come into the game in the general direction of where he wanted to run. It didn’t take much thinking to realize that the best move was to go the other way.

That was just exactly what the Marlins were expecting to happen; most of the Marlin defense went to the same side as the quarterback, and when the dust settled the Icebergs had lost two yards and the ball. However, three plays later the Marlins were again forced to punt, and another Angarrack cannon shot into the end zone gave the Icebergs the ball on their own twenty.

The game went back and forth like that for the rest of the quarter, and for the second quarter, as well – neither team getting within about thirty yards of the opposing goal line, and just unable to get in for the score. When the gun sounded for the end of the half, the scoreboard still showed a scoreless tie.

“This is pretty incredible,” Braxton said into the microphone in the press box. “Who would ever have believed that the young Marlin team would hold the powerful Coldwater Icebergs to a scoreless tie in the first half of the season opener? The Marlins have shown an innovative offense and a tougher defense than anyone could have imagined. This is in no way the runaway game that virtually everyone had been expecting.”

Down in the parking lot of the Frostee Freeze halfway across town, Eddie and the other former Marlins hadn’t been paying any attention to the game. They didn’t have it on the radio, and preferred to sit around and brag about how much better things would have been if they’d been playing the game, and how the young varsity team was going to get obliterated. The occasional noise of the crowd that carried across town wasn’t enough to deter them from their opinions. Only when someone several tables down announced loudly, “They’re still tied 0-0 at the half,” did Eddie take notice. “You don’t mean the Spearfish Lake team, do you?”

“Yeah,” the guy said. “They’re hanging tough in there. Neither team can quite put it away, but the Marlins ain’t getting their butts kicked, either.”

“Well, son of a bitch!” Lanny snorted. “The Icebergs must be going easy on them, setting them up for the kill.”

“Still, to hold them down like that,” Scotty shook his head. “Maybe they’re having a bad year.”

“No year could be as bad as that,” Eddie snorted. “I mean, except for us.”

Over at the Back Street Bar a few blocks away there was a similar disbelief. “What the hell do they think they’re doing?” Jerome Weilfahrt shook his head. “Those damn kids should have been mercy-killed by now!”

“I don’t understand it,” George Battle sighed. “That’s mostly freshmen and sophomores, but they act like they know how to play football.”

“There had to be a payoff or something involved,” Weilfahrt snorted. “At least they seem to be looking good in the first half, but mark my words, in the second half the Icebergs are going to come out and eat. It isn’t going to be pretty for those kids.”

To the amazement of everyone, the third quarter picked up about where the second one left off. The Iceberg kicker started the half with another weak kick, which was grabbed by Jimmy Gogolin. The junior speedster managed to get well past midfield before being pulled down, but after that the game continued much like it had before – both teams mounting strong drives into good defenses, but just not able to get into a scoring position. Several times the Marlins were brought to a stop just outside the distance where Kulwicki was comfortable turning to Lyle Angarrack for a field goal attempt – he’d hoped the kid could get a chip shot attempt or two to build his confidence before trying one at a longer distance.

At the end of the third quarter, the scoreboard still read 0-0, but early in the fourth quarter an Iceberg running back managed to get loose from around the Marlin forty-yard line and go in for a score. The Marlins at least managed to hold off a two-point conversion attempt, leaving them down by a touchdown.

By now Rudd’s idea of giving his second-string players some experience against an easy foe had long been abandoned. Young though they were, the Marlins were not the walkovers they’d been in years past. The young Marlins were tiring now, and as the game was in its final minute the more experienced players had a scoring drive going that pushed the Marlins inside their ten yard line.

It was at that moment that Kulwicki called a time out. “No more fooling around,” he told his players. “We’ve got to gamble. This game ain’t lost yet, not by a long shot. Now, here’s what we’re going to do.”

When the teams lined up again, Lyle Angarrack was again playing linebacker. He really hadn’t been much of a factor on the few occasions that he played, and as a result the Icebergs didn’t seem to be taking him seriously. As usual, nobody on the Icebergs was too thrilled with running a play in his direction, but this time he wasn’t a decoy. The Iceberg quarterback took the snap, looked around for the handoff, found him blocked by the strong-side defense led by Rusty Frankovich, and looked up just in time to see the sky darken with the blue jersey of the kicker. He went down hard, and the ball got knocked loose – only to be picked up by Jimmy Gogolin, who took off for the far end zone as hard as he could go, pursued by a good portion of the Iceberg team.

Only one back had been playing at all deep, and he was the only one to see the fumble recovery and be in a position to do anything about it. He took off after Gogolin as hard as he could go, with fans on both sides of the field yelling their heads off. With a supreme effort, he drove the young Marlin end off the sideline just two yards short of the Iceberg goal line, with only eleven seconds left on the clock.

Play was halted at that point, partly due to the ball going out of bounds, and partly to deal with the Iceberg quarterback, who had had the wind knocked out of him. It took several minutes to get around to resuming play at the other end of the field, and this time, Angarrack was still on the field, this time as a halfback.

After the way the big kicker had crashed through the line, the Iceberg defensive captain had things pretty well figured out: they were going to give him the ball, and just let him use his size and weight to crash through the line. It was no surprise that much of the Iceberg line and backfield was lined up to oppose him.

Finally, Mike Kovacs snapped the ball to Howie Erikson, who turned to hand off the ball to the big back as most of the Iceberg defense converged in his direction. The attention was so much on him that no one in particular noticed that Erikson continued his swing around, and actually handed the ball off to Steve Sarmeinto, who took off on a slant toward the far side of the end zone. He was still virtually unnoticed, except by one official who threw his hands in the air while Iceberg players were still piling onto Angarrack. Finally, he had to stand there in the end zone with the ball held high in the air with one hand, just to show that he was the one who had it.

“So all of a sudden we have a tie game again,” Braxton said up in the press box. “With only three seconds to go, whether we go into overtime will depend on the Marlin extra point attempt. The clock is stopped on the field while some substitutions are made for the extra point. It looks like they’re going to try a kick rather than a running conversion attempt. We have several players coming off the field, and some others coming on. Let’s see, we have number 62, who we haven’t seen before . . . the roster says ‘A. Kielhorn.’ That’s a new one on me, Anissa.”

“Watch carefully,” Anissa grinned. She’d known this could happen, but had been asked to keep quiet about it until it came about. “We are about to witness a truly historic moment for Spearfish Lake football. Number 62 is Ashley Keilhorn, the first girl to ever take the field in a Spearfish Lake football uniform. She’s been Lyle Angarrack’s regular holder for field goal and extra point attempts since practice started earlier in the month.”

“Ashley fuckin’ Keilhorn? What the fuck is this?” Lanny said down at the Frostee Freeze parking lot. They’d been listening to the game on the car radio of Eddie’s car all through the second half, still amazed that the team was holding on. “A fucking girl!”

“I don’t know,” Scotty said thoughtfully. “You have to admit she’s bigger than most of the guys on the team.”

“Yeah, but a fucking girl!” Eddie snorted. “I mean, Jesus H. Christ! I mean, how the fuck low can they go?”

“I don’t know,” Scotty shook his head. “I ain’t too sure how bad I’d want to have my hand that close to where Lyle Angarrack is kicking the ball. Shit, you could lose some fingers that way.”

“You OK, Lyle?” Ashley asked as the teams started to line up. He was breathing deeply, but not raggedly.

“Just fine, Ashley,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”

“And here we go,” Braxton said into the microphone. “The ball is snapped, it’s spotted, it’s booted . . . and it’s GOOD! THE MARLINS WIN IT! THE MARLINS WIN IT! THE MARLINS WIN IT! I hate to steal the line, but do you believe in miracles? YESSSS! The young and inexperienced Marlin team that many charged was too young and too inexperienced have won the season opener against the powerful Coldwater Icebergs for the first time in a dozen years! If you missed this game you missed one that will be talked about around Spearfish Lake for decades! What a performance! It truly was a miracle, brought off by Coach Rick the Rock Kulwicki and his young Spearfish Lake Marlins who no one thought had a chance!”

“Well, fuck,” a dejected Jerome Weilfahrt said down at the corner table of the Back Street Bar. “I guess that blows up any chance of getting control back because everybody thinks the team can’t get the job done.”

“Yeah,” George Battle replied, no less dejected. “Well, at least we can say we fought the good fight. We tried to keep the program so the kids could have some fun with it, and I guess we failed. If they continue to play like that, we don’t stand a chance now. As far as I could figure out, no one even got hurt, except maybe for that Iceberg quarterback.”

“I don’t know what else we could do,” Weilfahrt shook his head. “But damn, I wish I was down there now. Maybe I should have done things a little differently, but it’s too late now.”

It took Braxton a while to get to Coach Kulwicki. “Great game, Coach,” he said. “Any thoughts?”

“Well, we surprised them, that’s for sure. But then, we surprised ourselves, too. The kids gave me everything I could ask for, and they proved they had what it takes to be winners. We may surprise a few other people before the season is over with.”

“Next week you’ll be going up against the Warsaw Warriors, which are traditionally a much weaker team than Coldwater. Any thoughts?”

“We’ll be ready to go when they are.” Kulwicki smiled. “I can’t tell you how it’s going to come out till we see the scoreboard at the end of the game.”

Just at that time, Brandy was addressing the still celebrating players. “A few weeks ago I asked you to restore the honor of Spearfish Lake football,” she said. “I’d say you made a huge step in that direction tonight. The job is not done, but you made a darn good start, and you proved that we haven’t forgotten not only how to play football in Spearfish Lake, but to do it in an honorable and sportsmanlike manner while rising to the challenge. That’s all I ever wanted. Now, keep up the good work!”

Lyle and Ashley were standing off to the edge of the crowd, still wearing their football uniforms. “Well, I’d say that worked out pretty good,” Ashley smiled. “At least I get a football player for a boyfriend. I never really thought that would happen.”

Lyle turned and took her in his arms. “Look at it from my viewpoint,” he laughed. “You want weird, I get a football player for a girlfriend. How often does that happen?”

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