Dinner for…All!

Annual Banquet A Success!

The annual Newcastle Chamber of Commerce Banquet was held on Friday evening, November 13th. Once again, the business owners, employees and members of the community gathered at the Weston County Senior Services building, to enjoy the guest speaker and each-others company… This year’s guest speaker was former White House Press Secretary and Wyoming native Dana Perino. Read more

The Burrall Blog – Weekend In Laramie

11/16/09 – 9:23 AM

What an honor it was for me to describe three state championship football games (2A, 3A, 4A) for rtcom.tv.  All five of the webcasts should be archived there by the middle of this week.

One of the games I called was Thermopolis’ 22-20 win over Glenrock for the 2A title.  Glenrock is a great team and worked very hard to have a chance at back-to-back championships, but sometimes teams most people don’t expect to win are completely sure themselves that they will.  That was the case with the Thermopolis Bobcats.  Their defense stopped the Herders immediately on 4th down.  Their offense didn’t let falling snow or accumulated snow bother them.  And the Bobcat offense showed something it hadn’t shown much of this season: quarterback Mitch Syverson running the ball.  He did for 155 yards and two touchdowns.  It was a great plan by Mitch’s dad, head coach Chuck Syverson.  But, get this:  Mitch, as it turns out, had not run the ball much until this past Saturday because he played all season with a stress fracture in his leg.  He suffered it during last basketball season when he was still in Spearfish.  Anyway, it was a well-deserved win for Thermopolis, who has many of their important players, including Syverson, back in 2010.

By the way, I had never broadcast any football games during snow before, so that was fun, too.

While in Laramie, I attended the Wyoming Cowboy basketball season opener against South Dakota State, who overwhelmed the Cowboys, 77-61.  And believe me, the game wasn’t that close.  The Cowboys’ defense was terrible, allowing several uncontested baskets to the Jackrabbits quickly after their own made baskets.  And SDSU made 11 three-pointers, only a few of which were even moderately contested.  There’s a lot of work ahead for this team.  They are inexperienced and are in need of the kind of leadership Brandon Ewing had given them over the last couple of years.

And as I came home Saturday night, I listened to Cowboy Football’s incredible comeback win at San Diego State, 30-27.  24 unanswered points in the 4th quarter led the Cowboys back.  After how the offense had been performing over the previous three weeks, and the struggle the defense was having, this came out of nowhere.  Now, this team feels it can do anything.  This probably doesn’t give them any more of a chance to beat TCU, a national championship contender, this Saturday, but a victory over Colorado State on the day after Thanksgiving would likely put the Cowboys in a bowl game for the first time in five years.  That would be quite an achievement for a team with a first-year head coach and whose program was, frankly, going nowhere at this time last year.

The Burrall Blog – Offenses Off

11/2/09 – 10:34 AM

You may have been shocked that the Broncos were knocked from the unbeaten ranks by the Baltimore Ravens, but consider that the Ravens could just as easily be 5-2 or 6-1 as they are 4-3.  Besides, only 200 yards of offense won’t win you very many games in the NFL (unless you have Tony Ginn run back two kicks for touchdowns in the same quarter).

It’s very difficult to go unbeaten in the NFL, and even as good as the Saints are, I don’t expect them to remain unbeaten.  Hey, even the almighty Patriots didn’t do it a couple of years ago.

And Wyoming Cowboy football has hit a little bit of a rough patch, with losses to Air Force and Utah.  The big reason is an offense that has lost its punch over those games.  Look, the only TD against the Utes was on a pass to Austyn Carta-Samuels.  Yes, it was fun, but it also isn’t a good sign when a play like that is the only scoring play.  The Cowboys’ defense fought really hard on Saturday, but was on the field a lot.  UW still must play BYU and TCU, so the offense will need to regain its consistency if it wants to be in a bowl game.