Nothing tastes better than the thrill of victory. After competing on a indoor flag football team for the past 14 months, we finally reached the mountaintop. My flag football team, dubbed “Team Belfair” won the Zone Sportsplex Buccaneer Division Championship after registering a 46-40 victory against Team Green in the championship title game on June 8 in Poulsbo.
We never trailed once and were able to secure the victory when quarterback Aaron Crutchfield downed the ball to run out the clock. When the clock finally struck triple zeroes, I made a beeline for one of our best players, Andy Taylor. Andy had two interceptions and numerous passes defended, willing our team to a victory against a squad we had lost to earlier in the season. I picked him up in the air and ran around the field frantically for about five seconds before dropping him back down to earth.
A few moments later Zone Sportsplex owner Ted Thetford made his way to the field to present us with the championship trophy. He handed me the trophy, but I knew I wasn’t the one who should be grasping the gold. I handed the trophy to Andy and he held onto to it as we gathered around for a memorable team picture that surely will be the default photos on all of our myspace accounts for quite a while.
The thrill of winning a title made the 60-mile drive back to my apartment in Puyallup a much more enjoyable ride than usual. On my drive back to Puyallup I began to think about all of the athletic contests I’ve covered in East Pierce County over the past eight months that brought out the same kind of emotions that my flag football team felt after winning the championship. Who could forget the Puyallup Vikings soccer teams emotional victories in the quarterfinals and semi-finals of the Class 4A state tourney. Emotions were running high in February during the Rogers Rams girls basketball team’s roller coaster ride to the state tournament. Julia Nix’s two blocks against Foss star guard Deborah Anderson in the district playoffs propelled the Rams to the spectacle that is the state tournament. The celebration in the middle of the court mirrored our celebration on the synthetic turf in Poulsbo.
During our celebration, the adrenaline was flowing so swiftly through my body that I couldn’t feel any pain in my bad wheel. Due to my creaky right knee, I played safety instead of my usual wide receiver position this past season. Despite my nagging knee problem and the 75 minute ride to Poulsbo, there was no way I was going to miss those playoff games with my buddies from Belfair.
Hopefully, we can duplicate our performance when the playoffs roll around once again this August.
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