From:The
Goalpost
Volume
7, Issue 1
June
2003
The
2002 season with its motto "Make it Happen" didn't happen until the playoffs
arrived. The Tigers with inexperience and injuries sat at 3-3 halfway through
the season. The only bright spot
was the exciting win over Blackhawk 35-28. This
proved to be a huge win and enabled the Tigers to make the playoffs for
the eighth time in nine years. Even
though Moon came into the playoffs as a fourth seed and had to play the
conference champs Belle Vernon, the Tigers wanted to make it happen. The
game at Hopewell in week nine gave the Tigers confidence. Even
though we lost 10-0, we held the Vikings (the eventual State Champs in
AAA) to only two first downs. Our
young players were starting to come of age. The
Tigers traveled to Belle Vernon for that first round game of the WPIAL
playoffs and found themselves down early 7-0. This
team had matured and we, the coaches, knew we would come back. Speaking
of coming back, that week we had two players return to our line-up. Rick
Derenda and Austin Sykes coming back after long injuries. This
sparked the team and we went on to win the game 34-16.
The
second round had the Tigers facing the seventh ranked team in the state
in New Castle. In our first meeting
with the Red Hurricanes, I thought we played them tough and the team was
gaining confidence. The game was
played at North Allegheny High School. This
may have been our best game of the season. We
were winning 21-0 in the fourth quarter and eventually won 21-16. Now
we entered the semifinals for only the third time in the school's history. We
had to play an undefeated team, Pine-Richland. We
had beaten them the year before in the first round of the playoffs. It
was an exciting game and ended in regulation tied 7-7. We
lost in the second overtime 21-20. This
is two years in a row we have lost our last game by a point. The players
proved they never gave up and the seniors had a season to be proud of in
future years. This makes nine consecutive
seasons without a losing record for Moon Football. We
will miss the seniors and thank them for all of their hard work. We
look ahead to next year and are excited about the experienced players that
are coming back. The schedule is
the same. We open at home with Hampton. The
players and the coaching staff thank all of our loyal fans for their great
support.