The Saint's won tonight in a 17-12 rout of Garder-Edgerton for the sub-state championship, propelling Aquinas to it's first ever state championship game appearance.

The team scored first with a touchdown from a quarterback keep by Ricky Nachbar.  We followed that up with a field goal by David Baska.  The first half ended 17-7.  The Saints accomplished two interceptions and a blocked punt along with the scoring.

Early in the second half, Nachbar went down with an injury, (I was literally right where he lunged out of bounds and called for Lillis and Travis the trainer, it was ugly).  Head coach Kevin Kopecky went to former starting quarterback and current Linebacker, Beau Borquin.  Bourquin did a a great job stepping into the job with several passes to brother Zach Bourquin.     

After the win, the team celbrated for a couple minutes until coaches choraled them to recieve the trophy.  After that the team ran to the fans and the fans ran onto the field. The next maybe 20 minutes were full of hugs (coach-coach, coach-player, player-player, player-parent, etc.)  There was also a discreet thumbs-up from school president, Dr. Bill Ford.

In the last blog I mentioned my chat with Jan Morin, mother of OL star Jake Morin.  She and I found each other in the chaos and shared a hug and talked about how proud we were of the boys.  "I knew these boys were tough, they wouldn't go down without a fight," Jan said.

A good majority of the boys got interviewed and they are so happy.  There was even a dance party in the locker room.  I saw it driving back to school.

For 16-point underdogs, we weren't too bad.  Congratulations boys!

1st STATE FINAL - 1:00 p.m. Next Saturday @ Emporia State.  The Saints will play against the Hutchison Salthawks who won 42-21 over McPherson in their first year playing 5-A after moving down from 6-A.

It's Our Time! 

(Look for pictures soon!)