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CATHOLIC
HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL LEAGUE of METROPOLITAN NEW YORK
Player of the Week Nomination
Nominee:
Luna Mishoe School: Xavier High SchoolPosition: Defensive Tackle Opponent: Mt. St. Michael
Date of Game: 11/13/10 Ht. 5’5" Wt. 210 Class: Sr. Hometown: Garden City, NY
Details of nominees performance:
In a CHSFL AAA-AA Playoff Consolation Matchup, #14 Xavier defeated #6
Mt. St. Michael 21-14 in a dramatic see-saw battle with an improbable come
from behind win to go 6-4 Overall and 5-2 in the CHSFL AA-A Division.
Defensive Tackle Luna Mishoe played a huge role in a very close contest.
With Mount running the fullback 21 times Luna had 7 solo tackles and 6
Assists. He also added two strips of the ball for fumble recoveries. The
second strip fumble recovery was with less than three minutes left in the
game after Xavier had failed to convert on 4th down trailing
14-13. With Mount looking to just run out the clock Luna stripped the ball
from the fullback and ran the ball 30 yards down to the Mount 15 yard line
to set up Xavier final go ahead score.
Class Honors:
Luna has a cumulative average of 90 during his 3 ¼ years at Xavier. He
has received 2nd Honors grades in 7 of 13 marking periods. He
has taken 5 Honors/AP Courses while at Xavier.
League Honors:
Standing only 5 foot 5 inches and weighing 210 pounds it would be easy
to look past Luna as a starting varsity Defesive Lineman in the CHSFL. And
we have, yet once he got a chance to get on the field 1/3 of the way into
his Junior year, it was clear that Luna was one of the best DTs in the
league. His work ethic in the weight room (Bench Press 350, Squat 505) and
on the field, led to him being named a Captain for the 2010 Xavier Varsity
Football Team.
Other Sports & Honors
Luna is a three season student-athlete at Xavier. During the Winter
season, in his Freshman and Sophomore years, he threw the shot-put for
Xavier’s indoor track team and in his Junior year, he wrestled in the
215 weight class. During the Spring season, Luna has played Rugby for
Xavier. In his freshman year he was a backup at Prop, he started on the JV
team in his Sophomore year and last year, he traveled with the team to the
National High School Championships in Salt Lake City Utah.
One of my favorite war movies growing up was Pork Chop Hill, a 1959 film starring Gregory Peck and a young George Peppard and a very young Robert Blake, among others. Set in the closing months of the Korean War, it tells the true story of fierce battle between American G.I.s and the Chinese for control of Pork Chop Hill, a desolate hill along Korea's 38th parallel.
As the movie opens, the Chinese overwhelm the hill and its defenders. The Americans counter-attack and the fighting rages day and night, often devolving into ferocious hand-to-hand combat in and among the trenches that honeycomb the hill. Incredibly, all of this is happening even as armistice negotiations between the United Nations, China and North Korea drag on in Panmunjom, not very many miles away.
In one of many memorable scenes in the film, two frustrated American officers at the Panmunjom talks angrily wonder aloud why the Chinese are fighting so hard for terrain that is of no tactical or strategic value to either side, especially with the war obviously drawing to a close. Finally, one officer looks at the other and says, "Maybe that's the point. Pork Chop's value is that it has no military value. The Chinese want to see if we're as willing to fight and die for that worthless hill as they are."
Some of the people who read these Xavier Alumni newsletters and E-blasts are fighting for real in Afghanistan and Iraq right now, and they would be the first to tell you that only a fool would seriously compare the game of football to war, and I am certainly not going to do so here.
The point I'm taking entirely too long to make is that this Saturday afternoon at 1:00 PM, The Team Formerly Known as the Kaydets...and then the Bruins... will be playing Mount Saint Michael in something the Catholic High School Football League is calling a "Bowl Game". Naturally, the 16th Street Road Warriors are being required to travel to Mount's campus up in the Bronx.
The Knights (5-3, 5-4) were blown right out of the CHSFL AA Division Playoffs by Chaminade last Saturday, and the Mounties (4-4, 4-5) were bounced from the AAA Division Playoffs by Holy Trinity. Both teams play against traditional rivals on Thanksgiving morning— the Mounties take on Cardinal Hayes— and normally both teams would remain idle until then. This year, however, the CHSFL once again has the schools that lost in the first round playing each other on the following weekend.
But since Saturday's game has no bearing whatsoever on league standings or titles, why bother?
One of Xavier's Sons attending last year's playoff game against Mount (at Mount), when he heard there would be a "bowl game " for the losers on the following weekend, questioned the point of playing a game in which absolutely nothing is at stake. "It's like kissing your sister," he said.
"Hey, Bub," I was about to say, "all three of my sisters are married! Put up your dukes!" Then I realized he was speaking metaphorically. (My degree was a bachelor of science in marine transportation. I don't do metaphors. And is that even a metaphor? Ex-Midshipman Tweedy?) But metaphorically or otherwise, I disagree. Here's why:
FIRST, 17 days is too long a time for our guys to endure the drudgery of practice— exacerbated by the daily trek across the East River to Red Hook— without playing, especially when we will be hosting a very strong AAA Division Fordham Prep squad— at Fordham— on Thanksgiving morning. What better way for our kids to prepare for the AAA Rams than to take on the AAA Mounties?
SECOND, as previously noted, it was Mount Saint Michael who knocked Xavier out of last year's AA Division playoffs. This is a chance for the 16th Street Kids to exact a small measure of revenge on behalf of the 2009 Knights.
THIRD, Xavier's season record now stands at 5-4. Victories against the Mount on Saturday and Bronx Jesuit on Thanksgiving would allow the Knights to finish at 7-4, a respectable season by anyone's standards and one that would put this crew in a fairly exclusive club among the Xavier teams that have gone before them over the past 127 years.
FOURTH, and finally, since when does a trophy or championship have to be at stake for head coach Chris Stevens '83, the kids and their coaches to fire up The Amazing Fantastic Gridiron Way Back Machine one more time and take it out for a spin— even if it's all the way up to the Bronx?
Did all you sons of... Xavier want to stop playing when you walked off the field for the last time on that Thanksgiving morning years ago? Forever is a long time, kids. If we have someone to play, let's play them. Their place or ours— it doesn't matter.
Both teams took it on the chin last weekend— we'll see who comes up off the mat Saturday afternoon and makes the other guys feel downright unfortunate that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. We'll see who plays hard when there's "nothing to play for."
It says here that our kids take Pork Chop Hill on Saturday afternoon.
Directions to Mount Saint Michael from anywhere on the planet— with maps!— can be found at http://departments.xavierhs.org/athletics/football/2010webpage/mount/directions.htm.
Standing by....
Tom O'Hara '69
