59-53 in Oxford: The Bobblehead Remembers, and So Does Ken
Cleveland State59
Miami (OH)53
- Game
- 2026 Week 7
- Date
- 2026-10-24
- Site
- Away
- Result
- Win
- Record
- 6-1
VIKINGS 59, MIAMI (OH) 53. In Oxford. One hundred and twelve points, friends. A football game broke out in the middle of a fireworks display and nobody called the fire department.
Donna came again. She’s undefeated in Oxford now: two trips, two wins, both shootouts. She wore the green felt cape the Reyes kids made me last year. She says it’s “her cape now.” I’m not going to fight a woman in a cape.
And let me tell you about Joe Snyderwine’s RedHawks, because I’ve got nothing but respect: that offense comes at you like a freight train with a jet engine strapped to it. You don’t stop it. You just try to score faster. And our guys did. Six points faster. Six and one, folks. Two road games into the trip, two wins.
Bridget texted from Athens: “Good game, Dad. Don’t get used to it.” The Ohio game is the last of the year, at our place. She’s coming for Thanksgiving. I’ve already started making the stuffing in my head.
Five pierogi. Put it in the time capsule next to Donna’s cape.
I’d like to report to the readers of the Ledger that Nadia Petrakis has now lost the Miami (OH) bet three years running.
Tuesday at the Lantern Room, she set down my beer, looked me in the eye and said, “Your team is better than mine,” and then, quietly, “for now.” Then she reached for the bobblehead. I thought she was going to turn it to the wall again. Instead she turned it to face me, and said, “He’s watching you now, Ken.” I’ve been sleeping with a light on.
On the game: a fifty-nine-point road win against an offense that can hang fifty on anybody. The defense gave up fifty-three, so I’m going to need everyone to understand this was not a defensive showcase. But the Vikings scored every time they had to, on the road, in a shootout. That’s an offense that can win any kind of game.
I called my father Sunday. Good day. I told him the score and he said, “That’s basketball, Kenny.” Then he laughed for a long time and asked me to tell it to him again so he could laugh again. I told it four times.
Back and forth
One hundred and twelve points, Kenny!
That’s not a football score. My dad’s right. That’s basketball.
Donna’s still undefeated in Oxford.
Sign her up for the road trip. She’s the only defense we’ve got.
Fifty-nine points in Oxford, a bobblehead now staring at Ken, and four retellings of a basketball joke for the best audience in Sarasota.
Split Decision is fiction. Mickey Bridges, Ken Hogmanes and The Lakefront Ledger are invented; the games and scores are not.