St. Joe vs. Lakeland

Tonight St. Joe goes to LaGrange, Indiana to take on the Lakeland Lakers in the second round of IHSAA Sectional playoffs. During the regular season, St. Joe devastated the Lakers 63-7. Now it is a rematch, and after last year's big win for the Indians, Lakeland has become yet another rivalry for St. Joe's football program. It was the second to last week in the 2009 season of Indiana High School Football, it was another year of offensive woes for St. Joe football, our offense had not been able to achieve much the entire year. It was a different story on the other side of the ball, our defense had been ranked in the top five defenses for the past two years and it was the same thing for my senior year. I had started at defensive end for St. Joe Junior year and I was doing my best to fight back from an injury and earn my starting spot back that I had gotten replaced in. St. Joe went to Lakeland with a 3-4 record (it was a very troubled year with injuries and we had one of the toughest schedules in the state), the Lakers came in with a 7-0 record, they thought it was going to be a push over. Had they forgotten about the years past? St. Joe has always dominated in this series and we were not going to let them think that they had a chance to beat us this year. However, we were facing one of the best teams that Lakeland had ever had, I will say that they were a pretty good team, but that was not going to make us feel inferior. We were better than them and we knew it. It was a very close game, in the final minute the score was 10-9 in St. Joe's favor. Lakeland had the ball and drove down the field and scored to make the score 15-10 with three seconds left in the game. They thought they had won the super bowl, it was a great moment for them (a rural Indiana school to beat and South Bend school). They lined up for the last play of the game (it was a kickoff). All they had to do was make one more tackle and they could shake our hands and go celebrate in the locker room. Well I'm proud to say thats not how this story ends. They kicked off and our return man caught it. The last three seconds ticked off the clock and the buzzer sounded in the middle of the play, Colin (the returner) had still not gone down. He found a hole in a mass of blockers and ran right through it. He was on his way to the endzone!! The Lakeland kickoff team ran after him as hard as they could, when Colin got within a couple yards of the endzone he leaped in, we had done it! We won 16-15 on the very last play of the game!! Our team walked off the field with our heads held high, the Lakeland fans looked like they wanted to kill us. That game sealed the birth of the St. Joe/Lakeland rivalry and from now on, especially tonight when the players are playing for a chance to go to the sectional title game, it will be a great rivalry game to watch.