The Wacky Adventures Of Josh And Chad: Donald Chapman III Stadium

 After hearing about it for many months, I finally decided to go check out the brand new stadium for the Mifflin County Huskies. 

I really didn't know what to expect to be honest with all of you, but nonetheless, I was very excited to be going to see it.

And I had the perfect excuse to go, the Mifflin County boys soccer team was competing at the stadium that night so I wanted to cover it for Hometown Sports. Selfishly, I also wanted to see one of the most influential people in my life, and that is the current Head Coach of the boys soccer program, Mr. Yoder.

Coach Yoder was one of my coaches as well as one of my teachers during my time in Lewistown Area High School (Now Mifflin County) and he certainly saved me through a ton of dark moments in my life and I was so happy to see him become the Head Coach for the soccer team.

Walking through the entrance way and getting to see the stadium in person, my first impressions of it was WOW. I worked my way onto the field which is the second time that I got to be on a turf field and it still feels like carpet lol. But getting to see coach Yoder again really put a smile on my face, we got to talking and he showed me around the stadium, explaining a lot of the cool new features that it has to offer. 

Coach Yoder even showed me the brand new press box where I ultimately went up to go watch and cover the game from. Holy moley was the press box awesome! There, I met with my old baseball coach Ray Hoppel who was doing the announcing for the game, Mrs. Schnell who helps keep the stats, Coach Yoder's lovely Beka was there running the clock and thirty year veteran Matt Moore who was controlling the lights among many other cool stuff happening at the press box.

Which was one of the first things that I wanted to talk about which is the lights of the stadium. A fun fact that I soon learned was that every time the Huskies would score a goal, they would hit a switch and some fancy light show would begin. It certainly was mind blowing.

Prior to the game, I went to check out the new concession stand and got me some amazing cheese fries 🍟.

The game itself was quite enjoyable to watch, I can see the difference with how the game was played on a turf compared to years past and the kids had a great time and both teams played extremely hard which is what anyone can ask for.

Ultimately, it would be the Huskies who came out victorious! With the final score of 4-1, I worked my way down to the field and got to hangout with coach Yoder for a bit. We talked about how the game looks a lot different with the turf field and I must say, there is a major difference. 

After the interview was over, we said our goodbyes and I thanked him again for being such an amazing influence on my life.

With that being said, at the time of this blog post, Mifflin County's record is at (5-3). I really want to see this team get a winning record at season's end. I am being a bit bias with this, but seeing coach Yoder help these young kids out and build up a program that has been struggling for many years really reminds me of when I was younger. I pray that Coach Yoder will continue to find success and inspire his players like he did me.

Thank you to the people of Mifflin County and Hometown Sports for the opportunity to go to the new stadium and I pray that you guys will continue to have success.

Until Next Time!

God Bless and Be Safe Everybody! 🙏🙏🙏





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2009 Lewistown Panthers Baseball

Image
 Well, with me trying to become more positive about myself, I have been looking back into the past and find ways to let go of some of the negative emotions attached to it. One such issue was going back to my time at Lewistown Area High School which as mentioned before was a huge struggle for me.  But again, trying to be more positive, I wanted to look back at that time and remember some of the good moments during that period. One of which was playing for the Lewistown Panthers baseball team. Heading into my senior year of high school, I wasn't in the best state of mind. Honestly, I really did not want to be there anymore, I was just so sick of life, never thought I was going to be anything. All I ever was going to be was a huge disappointment. I can only give credit to God for being able to get through that year. But then baseball tryouts came along and I decided to go for it again. The previous years I've tried only to fail, which in fairness, wasn't much of a surprise bec...
Read more

The Wacky Adventures Of Joshua and Chad: McVeytown Eagles Championship Parade!

Image
Well tonight was a pretty special night down here in McVeytown as Chad and I along with many other people who live here in McVeytown all came together to celebrate a special accomplishment. And that was how all three of the McVeytown Eagles teams made it to the CKYFL championship games. Winning in both the Peewee and Midget divisions and placing second in the Mighty Mights. Stuff like this doesn't happen often in such a small town where I live so to see these kids have the time of their lives during the parade was certainly a sight to see. One of the things I love about covering sports is when I see kids learn, work hard and turn it into success. And these kids were learning a lot throughout the season and watching them grow and not only become better football players, but better people as well.  Which is why I have really enjoyed covering the CKYFL these last few years for Hometown Sports. People like Travis McCullough who is the President of the league along with Adam Weaver, Rob...
Read more

The 2005 Lewistown Panthers Football Team!

Image
 I recently completed reading my story for Hometown Sports Magazine about the 2005 Lewistown Panthers football team who finally ended a thirty years of losing seasons. In this blog, I wanted to talk about why I wanted to write about this team and how I feel the lessons that were learned about them throughout the year can still be used today.  One of the biggest reasons as to why I wanted to write about this team was because of how much of team these guys were both on and off the field. These guys have played the game of football together for a number of years and it clearly showed. Plus being a youngster, I really didn't know the history of Lewistown Panthers football. I only remember going to games because I remember my cousins playing on the team. But talking about the football team in general, to put it nicely, there wasn't a lot of success. In fact when I started this journey of writing this story, I discovered that Lewistown didn't have a winning season for thirty year...
Read more