Humble in Victory, Gracious in Defeat

Winning during the regular season is a lot of work itself; now add the pressure of knowing you have to win to play another day. This year, the Marquez varsity football team was able to snag a thrilling 43-42 win over the Wilson Mules in the first round of playoffs, which made it the first Marquez football team to make it past the first round. In the second round of playoffs, the Marquez Gladiators went to Angelou High School to face the Manual Arts Toilers. The tension was high and the excitement was booming, but after a rough first half the tempo seemed to die down. Coming out of halftime, the score was 21-8 and the defense needed to create opportunities for the offense to score. All week the entire coaching staff was preaching that the “more physical team” would win the game. This needed to be the time that the Gladiators stepped up their game. Beginning the third quarter with the odds against them, the Gladiators offense came out strong with a touchdown. However, the defense was not able to stop the Toilers offense. The Marquez offense came out strong again and scored another touchdown, but the defense could not figure out a way to stop this fast offense. Starting outside linebacker and fullback Juan Hernandez (#17) commented, “I was frustrated. All week we were working on being physical and doing our assignments…We just couldn’t stop anything.” The gameplan was to stop the run that was killing defense for the entire first half. Hernandez said that the defense knew the opposing offense was going to run the football yet they could not stop it. At the end of the third quarter the score was 35-22. The fourth quarter was nerve-racking, the Gladiators knew this was their final shot to keep the season alive. Down by 13 points in the fourth quarter was something the Gladiators were familiar with, for the previous week they came back from a 13 point deficit. The only concern was if the defense could shut down the Toilers running attack to give the offense enough time to take the lead? Coming into the final quarter offense started off with the ball, but Eric Alfaro (#3) threw an interception giving the Toilers offense great field position. But in a huge change of events the Marquez defense sacked the quarterback forcing a fumble. The Marquez offense was ready to take the field while the defense was on the sideline cheering on the offense. Quarterback Eric Alfaro led his offense down to score a crucial touchdown in the final minutes of the game. The score was 35-30 with about 3 minutes to go. The game rested on the shoulders of this defense and they knew that the Toilers would continue to run the ball. Unfortunately, even the defense’s best efforts to stop Manual Arts were not enough. Manuel Arts secured the win with a last second touchdown. The final score was 41-30. Despite coming up short of a win that would have taken the Marquez varsity football team one step closer to it’s ultimate goal, the Gladiators made us proud by giving us the most memorable season of Marquez football so far.

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