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chords of that familiar fight song I knew so well, the
eruption of the crowd, the entire team tackling me in the end zone.  Mike might
have been our best player, breaking the school records that night for both
touchdowns and rushing yards in a regular season, but I won the game!  I made
us perfect!

Chapter 18
    Just like the coach said, there
wasn’t any celebration time.  Monday began another week of practice.  And just
like the previous week, practice was intense.  The coach said the reason that
West Whitaker was able to hang with us for so long was that our defense got
tired.  For the playoffs, the coach was going to substitute his defensive
players more often.  That meant that I would get more game time.  I knew I
wouldn’t get another season-winning touchdown, but at least I could have some
playoff-winning sacks.
    Our first game in the playoffs was
a cake walk.  Because we had a perfect record, we were paired against a team
who had won only half of their games.  By the halftime break, we were up by
five touchdowns, 3 of those belonging to Mike.  I had an amazing 3 tackles for
losses.  In the 2nd half, his playing time was over but mine was just
beginning.  My stats got even better.  Towards the end of the game, I hit their
quarterback so hard that he lost the ball.  Because of my conditioning, I was
able to quickly get up after the hit, rather than stay on the ground.  Once up,
and with the ball still lying there, I picked it up and I quickly realized that
the play hadn’t stopped.  I soon had a swarm of defenders coming at me.  I had
nothing else to do but run.  Just like that, I scored my second touchdown in
two weeks.  We were going to the second round of playoffs without being scored
on.
    Our second round game wasn’t quite
a blowout.  Mike again had multiple touchdowns, but our defense couldn’t stop
the other guys from scoring.  I had no touchdowns or sacks, but I did make one
tackle for a loss, which contributed to a second round 21-point victory.
    Now, we were playing for the
regional finals.  We had to play against one of the toughest teams in
Michigan.  They were a team that made it to the state semi-finals six out of
the last seven years.  They surely knew what Mike was capable of and spent all
week planning against him.  They held him to under 100 yards of rushing and 0
touchdowns.  What they didn’t plan for was our passing game.  As great a player
as he was, we still had an all-conference quarterback who could throw a really
deep ball, and two senior receivers who could catch that ball.  After fooling
them three times by faking a run and instead scoring three deep touchdown
passes, we took a seven point lead into the 4th quarter.  From there, our
defense did the rest.  The coach’s idea of subbing us out continually paid off
as our fresh defensive players wore the other team down and stopped them from
gaining any yardage the entire 4th quarter.
    For the first time in school
history, we were now in the semi-finals.  It would be our last step on our way
to the state finals.  We would have to play a team who had won the state
championship the previous year.  We practiced that week the same way we had
during the playoffs, and we played the game like we had played every game that
season, using the same plays.  But for whatever reason, they weren’t prepared
for us.  For the entire 1st half, we scored every time we got the ball.  Two of
those scores came from Mike’s punt returns.
    In the 2nd half, our starters
watched the game from the sideline so that they wouldn’t risk injury for the
championship game.  The sideline was still all business, though, and there
wasn’t any early celebrating.  Even though we had a commanding lead, we didn’t
want to lose it.  I ended the game with 2 sacks – the last one being on the
last play.  We had finally earned our way into the state finals.

Chapter 19
    The week leading up to the
championship game was similar to the West