Image a result of intense contests

Editor’s note: Sports editor Chris Schanz has taken thousands of photographs since starting the summer of 2013. In this “Photo Focus” series, he will take a look back at a handful of his favorite pictures and describe the story behind them.

••••••••••

Whether it’s the girls squad or the boys, whenever Jay County and Yorktown meet on the soccer pitch, it’s generally going to be an intense game.

No matter the location of the game, whether at the home of the Patriots, or the Tigers’ home pitch, or even somewhere in the area for a sectional game, whenever they meet, tensions will be high.

From 2014 through 2018, Jay County and Yorktown’s boys soccer games in the postseason were decided by one goal. In 2014, Jay County won 2-1 to win the sectional title. A year later Yorktown got a 4-3 victory for the championship. The next three years, Yorktown came out on top 2-1, 1-0 and 1-0 respectively.

Yorktown’s 2017 victory came on a goal in the final minute. A year later, Jay County allowed a goal with 15 minutes remaining in a 1-0 loss.

But prior to that loss on Oct. 2, 2018, Jay County and Yorktown were playing their way to a physical game. Given the recent history between the two programs, Jay County was seeking revenge and was playing with a chip on its shoulder.

So with that in mind, and having a couple players who seemingly played with no regard to the beatings their bodies would take, I was confident I’d be able to get some sort of action shot in what I had expected to be another low-scoring game on that October night in rural Marion at Eastbrook High School for the Class 2A sectional tournament.

Throughout his career, Ian McCombs played with reckless abandon. McCombs played much stronger than his small frame might suggest. He never shied away from contact, no matter the size of the player he’d be fighting for the ball.

Yorktown’s Hudson Bouw was about the same type of player as McCombs, although he was generally restricted to the 18-yard-box as the team’s goalkeeper. Bouw stood well over 6 feet tall — McCombs was on the other end of that measuring stick. Bouw was thick, and had a fiery red ponytail.

It didn’t matter that Bouw was constrained by the goalie box. He still played with the same toughness as McCombs. With the quickness of McCombs, his position as a forward, combined with Bouw’s position as well as his own physicality, a collision was bound to happen.

In the second half, a Jay County midfielder floated a ball toward the goal, and McCombs crashed the net hoping to give the Patriots the lead.

Bouw came off of his goal line toward the goal box in an attempt to play the ball, McCombs still crashing the play. Bouw jumped, just as McCombs did, and punched the ball away with his right hand.

In the same moment, Bouw extended his left arm as McCombs’ path to the ball’s trajectory was a little off the mark.

Instead of making contact with the ball — which by now Bouw had already knocked out of the area — McCombs collided with Bouw’s extended left arm, sending his feet deep out in front of him with his head crashing toward the pitch.

Meanwhile, Bouw’s right knee smacked the side of his teammate’s head.

In one quick moment, luckily captured on camera, McCombs was left out to dry, appearing as if he’s been knocked out, after being hit in his upper body while Bouw is smashing into his own teammate.

Sometimes soccer games can go a full 80 minutes with little contact between players. Most games between Jay County and Yorktown don’t play out that way.

In other games, there’s a giant collision between multiple players from both teams and they’re all captured in one image.

The latter happened Oct. 2, 2018. I was fortunate to catch the action, and it made for one of my favorite photographs.