1919-11-22

Recap of the Nov. 15 & 22 games

We’re now in the middle of November, 1919, and the Panthers are more than likely about 1-4, coming off what still stands as Reitz Football’s worst defeat in the history of the program. You can hear all about that in last week’s episode by going to ReitzFootball.com and clicking on PODCAST in the top menu. Or you may not want to revisit it. I understand. Regardless, all of our podcasts are available there.

A rematch with the second team of Central High School was announced and scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 13. While the paper said it was canceled because Reitz was not yet a member of the IHSAA and members weren’t allowed to play non-members, our research show the Panthers defeating this same team, 6-2. Now, it may be that Reitz historians confused this game with the Oct. 4 game, as it was a similar score (6-2 vs. 6-0).

Unfortunately, this is another one we’ll probably never know about, but we recognize this game as their second win of the season.

On Nov. 22, the Press talked about a home game against Ricadonia. For a little historical perspective, independent football teams were actually quite popular during this era. Evansville had several, including Woodlawn, Howell and the West Side’s Ricadonia Independents. The paper said “The Ricadonias always were known to have a hard driving team in years past when they were among the leading independent teams of the city.”

The Independents went up 13-0 in the first quarter, but the Mighty Panthers staged their first-ever comeback win, scoring 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter. Bale and Jewel Sutton scored touchdowns in the school’s 14-13 win. The paper doesn’t say who scored the kick conversion points.