I Believe in sportsmanship

This I Believe

I remember back on September 17, 2008 when my solon freshman football team played Mentor on Stuart Field. This was the most exciting game of the year because they were out toughest opponents of all time. I remember that we were fighting for the conference championship, 10-0 a prefect season in our league and Mentor was the only team standing in our way. It was a brutal battle and there were a lot of tears shed.

It was 4:30 and we, the Solon comets were prepared for battle. We had just finished our pre game warm up and now we were ready to play. We glared at our opponents with snakes in our eyes and got ready for the opening kickoff. BOOM #88 Cameron Bell smacks the Cardinals kick returner to set the tone for the game. I remember that hit sending a message to them because after that, they never returned it to my side again.

I remember on the first drive, Mentor was stopped by the Comets strong defense. On our first drive, we started it off with a 20 yard run by Jesse C to show we had the run game and we could pound it down their throats. The next play, Patrick Kstarting quarter back dropped back in the pocket with a 3 step drop and threw to the fade ran by Cory S and had the pass picked off and returned to the 5 yard line. Mentor had their hopes up but we knew our comets defense wouldn’t let us down. Mentor ran a play action to fake the run and trick our defense and it worked. The Quarter back hooked up with a receiver for a 5 yard touchdown pass to set the score to 6-0. Next play they went for 2 and Ryan S, our starting safety broke up the pass to keep the score 6-0. Now it was our turn to touch the ball on a kickoff. It was recovered by Ryan at the 25; he broke about 5 tackles and ran over the kicker for a 75 yard touchdown run! The crowd went crazy with cheers and screams. The comet offence went for 2 also and a pass thrown to Jesse C was completed by Patrick K. This made the score 6-8 Solon.

Now skipping to the 4th quarter we had the ball with six minutes left in the game and still holding the 20-8 lead, we had faced 4th-and-a-foot from the Mentor 41. Instead of going for the first down and milking the clock, we punted. One short kick and several passes later, Mentor scored and converted a two-pointer, making the score 20-16. Two plays later our quarterback Nate B dropped back into the pocket and was smacked by a linebacker who forced a fumble. At this point we knew it was time to kick our play into 6th gear and play our butts of. On mentors first play they threw to their 6ft 150 pound receiver Mike M for the touchdown. This put them into the lead 24-16 with only 1:30 seconds to go. With the ball at the 45 yard line and almost no time on the clock we had to connect several passes to win this game. The first pass was completed to me and a gain of about 40 yards. Now we had to run a hurry up and we ran “right charlie plus”. Pass was completed to Tres B for a touchdown with only 20 seconds left. This was the game winning pass, Solon 26 Mentor 24. I believe that at points of this game players were down and other teammates were picking them up. We the Solon Comets play as a team.

I Believe that at times when we were down, coaches and other players were picking each other up when they were down. Leaving the field with smiling faces, We the Solon Comets were Champions.