cleveland

Heading into the Birmingham-Cleveland high school football game on Friday night, something had to give in the West Valley League opener. The host Patriots hadn’t lost a league game since 2017 and had beaten Cleveland 13 consecutive times, by an average score of 40-8.

Cleveland, however, was undefeated and looking for its first 6-0 start since 2004.

It wasn’t pretty, but a superlative defensive effort and two impressive first-half drives gave the Cavaliers just enough to defeat the Patriots 14-9. Birmingham fell to 1-5.

Neither team’s most potent offensive weapon was able to take over the game.

Cleveland running back Moyosoreoluwa Odebunmi did most of his damage early, rushing for 40 yards on the Cavaliers’ opening drive, which ended with quarterback Julio Avalos’ one-yard touchdown run.

Odebunmi again carried much of the load on Cleveland’s second drive, contributing 39 yards and scoring on a two-yard run to give the Cavaliers a 14-0 lead.

While Odebunmi was producing for Cleveland, the Cavaliers largely stifled Birmingham’s top offensive threat, wide receiver Paul Turner.

Turner’s biggest play was a 45-yard punt return that set up the Patriots’ lone touchdown, a six-yard pass from quarterback Daniel Kakooza to Aidin Irizary late in the third quarter that cut Cleveland’s lead to 14-9.

“We knew that was one of the keys to getting the win, containing him,” Cleveland coach Mario Guzman said of Turner. “We knew he’d get his catches. That’s inevitable — the kid’s a baller. But we knew if we could contain him, rally and tackle, we’d be in a good position.”

The fourth quarter turned into a comedy of errors. Birmingham blocked a punt to take over at the Cleveland 11, only to have Cleveland block the ensuing field-goal attempt. The Patriots later got another opportunity when Chris Barrera recovered a fumble.

Kakooza then rediscovered Turner, connecting with him six times on the drive as Birmingham drove to the Cleveland three-yard line. But the Patriots again came away empty.

The dominant rushing attack that earned them four lopsided wins to start the season was more methodical than punishing, but Cleveland High still ground out a 24-18 nonleague victory Friday over host Crenshaw.

The Cavaliers improved to 5-0 with the win, while the Cougars fell to 4-2.

Cleveland, which entered the game averaging 258 yards rushing per game, were held to barely more than 200 on Friday, most of them scored by senior running back Moyosoreoluwa Odebunmi, who rushed for two scores.

The loss spoiled the season debut of Crenshaw’s Ethan Grant. The transfer from Los Angeles High threw two touchdowns in his first game for the Cougars, but a fumble in the end zone erased one potential score, and three consecutive dropped passes on Crenshaw’s final drive of the game prevented a comeback.

Crenshaw dominated early, Caden Baker stripping the ball from Odebunmi near midfield on Cleveland’s first possession and scoring on the 50-yard fumble return. On the Cougars’ next possession, Grant threaded a pass through two Cavalier defenders, finding Kyion Rattler for an apparent 55-yard score. But Rattler fumbled right before crossing the goal line, turning the ball over That’s when Odebunmi reeled off his best run of the night, a 58-yarder down the right sideline, to tie the score 6-6.

After Grant’s 60-yard score to Rattler put the Cougars up 12-6, Cleveland drove 80 yards in 12 plays, keyed by three completions by quarterback Domenik Fuentes and punctuated by Joseph Hurtado’s one-yard touchdown run. After the two-point conversion, Cleveland led 14-12.

Three plays later, Crenshaw took the lead again on a 21-yard strike from Grant to Joshua Jones. But the Cougars failed on their third two-point conversion of the first half, which ended with them leading 18-14.

Neither offense did much in the second half after Cleveland scored on its first play from scrimmage, a 32-yard touchdown by Odebunmi. Crenshaw was limited to two first downs in the second half while Cleveland added a safety by Cobe Green early in the fourth quarter to make the score 24-18.

“First half we shot ourselves in the foot a good number of times” Cleveland coach Mario Guzman said. “Our biggest thing is we want to play disciplined and we were a little undisciplined in that first half. So we challenged ourselves at halftime to get back to our roots, to be disciplined, physical and fast. And we really rose to the occasion in the second.”

“You only need to find one person in this entire world who doesn’t find you completely insufferable.”

That’s the wisdom Taylor Swift dispenses near the end of “Cleveland!,” one of four new songs on a newly expanded edition of “The Life of a Showgirl,” and if that exclamation point doesn’t tell you she’s found that person then I don’t know what would.

Released Thursday night, almost exactly a year after the original album came out, “The Life of a Showgirl: The Encore” tacks four bonus songs onto the blockbuster 2025 LP that set a new record for the biggest opening week of all time even as it drew the harshest reviews of her career. It also follows Swift’s high-profile wedding in July — her husband, the NFL star Travis Kelce, grew up in Cleveland Heights — and comes just as Grammy voters are about to decide on nominations for February’s awards ceremony, where “The Life of a Showgirl” is eligible for Swift’s eighth album of the year nod. (In case you haven’t been keeping track, that would tie her with Frank Sinatra for the most in Recording Academy history.)

In a statement ahead of “The Encore’s” release, Swift said she’d taken a trip to Sweden to celebrate “Showgirl’s” success with Max Martin and Shellback, her two principal collaborators on the album. “Really we just wanted to reflect and take in how grateful we were for the moment we were in,” she wrote, “but there was a studio there and we did what we do when we feel anything at all: We wrote more songs.”

Here are the four “Encore” tracks, ranked from worst to best.

4. ‘Cleveland!’
The exclamation point really is hilarious. (No shots at Cleveland.) I kind of dig the airy jangle-pop production, which reminds me a bit of “Ruin the Friendship,” by far the best song on the original “Showgirl.” But writing about her and Kelce’s romance as a bulwark against all the hate she receives as a rich and powerful pop star feels pretty uninspired, at least as rendered here. “The taste of me is acquired, but it’s his favorite dish”? Alas, no.

3. ‘Patient Zero’
“Encore’s” lead single — with a splashy music video set to premiere during Sunday night’s MTV Video Music Awards — has Swift fielding a phone call from a woman who’s dating one of the singer’s exes and could use a little advice. (“I’ve gotta be honest — I’ve been expecting your call,” Swift tells her.) That’s a rich premise, and I like the way the unexpected fiddle lick scrapes against the glossy synths. Again, though, the lyrics lack the emotional sophistication with which she once would have told a story like this one. And the song’s central image — a guy with a “devil on his shoulder under his halo” — is downright awkward.

2. ‘Pink Clouding’
OK, now we’re getting somewhere. This shimmering electro-pop number takes its title, as I just learned, from a term used among people experiencing addiction to describe the temporary euphoria one might feel in the early stages of recovery. (Recall that Swift wrote “Lavender Haze” a few years ago after hearing the phrase on “Mad Men.”) Here she’s looking back with regret at a relationship that she can see now was clearly a rebound: “You met me at a cursed time / I told you I was fine / And you were so good / That’s why you haunt me like you should.”

1. ‘Babylon’
Look, I’m not crazy about “liberated libertine.” And “Love is ice upon the ladder that you need to climb”? It’s giving Airbnb wall art. But man, oh man, does Swift finally tap into something deep in “Encore’s” closer: a trembling acoustic-guitar ditty about someone who’s realized only too late what they let slip away. Listen for yourself to hear how she sings it — this is a beautifully tender vocal performance — but the verse about the all-but-abandoned young mom sneaking into the bathroom to call her mom is an absolute killer. Taylor Swift: good songwriter!