The Big Game

Tonight is the big South County game between Mission Viejo High School (where my son is a senior) and rival and not too distant neighbor Tesoro High School (where my wife works). The game will be played at Tesoro. The OC Register has the game this way:

8. Mission Viejo (5-0) vs. Tesoro (5-0) - One team has to lose and that team will be Tesoro, 34-17.

Don't worry - there will be peace in the house either way. Kids come first.

Tesoro has a much smaller stadium than Mission, and we could have gone to the game thanks to my wife's league pass that gets us in any league game for free, but the authorities from both schools are almost in a panic about tonight's game. Ticket sales are being carefully controlled, there are all kinds of warnings about extra security for the expected sell-out crowd, and everybody seems to be worried about some kind of rumble between students from the rival schools.

Hey, folks, it ain't exactly South Central around here. I think the threat of any sort of real violence is pretty slim. They might send nasty text messages to each other, but I think we can rule out an English soccer riot.

My son will give me a full report later. The school wanted the band to be there so badly that they're taking the band's risers that they sit on at home games and transporting them to Tesoro since the visitor seating won't have room. They're serious about winning this one. Tesoro embarrassed Mission at Mission Viejo in the last league game of 2007 and knocked them out of the playoffs, so there is some revenge on the minds of the Diablos.

The game will be on one of the Fox Sports channels as the High School Game of the Week (694 on DirecTv). The wife and I are going to run up to Disneyland and check out the new designs for California Adventure that I mentioned earlier this week.

It'll be a little safer up there.

UPDATE: Bad night for Mission Viejo. Played poorly while Tesoro had a very strong game and won 34-14.