Five years of losing is over
Justin Perry
Issue date: 3/9/09 Section: Sports
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"The drought's over," said assistant coach Phillip Middleton. "We just broke a five-year losing streak right there. You guys just witnessed history."
Right from the start, the Spartans came down hard against the Dons, dominating the first half. Eighth man Jon Patchett scored a try in the 12th minute of play to go up 5-0.
Like a finely tuned machine, the Spartan offense continued to flourish and scored again at the middle of the first half with a try by outside-center Byron Covington, which brought the score to 10-0.
Inside-center James Vargas landed another try at the end of the first half, and team captain Hideki Maniwa took the conversion, leaving the Spartans with a 17-0 lead at the half.
Lock Vishnu Rengaraju scored another try at the beginning of the second half to put the score 22-0.
Vargas got his second try of the game in the middle of the half to go up 27-0.
"I hadn't scored in a while so I was really eager to get it today," Vargas said. "It was our first win ever so I was really jacked this whole week, ready to play USF. So it was really great."
San Francisco scored two tries and a conversion toward the end of the game, but it was to no avail.
"That was a good team win, I'm proud of the boys," head coach Dean White said. "They've worked hard all year. They've earned this one."
Middleton said the team's hard work and dedication in the week leading up to the game was an important factor in their performance in Saturday's game.
"This week was the first week where we had pretty much all our starters at practice all week," he said. "Even with a few guys injured, they were still coming out, working hard at practice on Tuesday and Thursday and it actually showed on Saturday. It carried right over into the game."
The Spartans demonstrated exceptional teamwork on Saturday, and the coaches and players alike felt this was the key to their success.
"This is the first time I've seen us play well as a team," Maniwa said. "Before this game, we'd always come apart, we'd have a lot of individuals. But today we achieved everything we needed to come out with a win."
Middleton agreed.
"Everyone played as a team, kept everything together, stayed focused, picked each other up instead of putting each other down when mistakes were made,"
he said.
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