No matter how much you win or how well you may play, the monkey on the back of an undefeated team can get quite heavy week-after-week. Playoffs are always challenging because a team has to be perfect on the day. If you're in-it-to-win-it, you have to be flawless. Sometimes being the undefeated favorite can make you an unlikely Underdog for not only are you standing nose-to-nose with an opponent with their own agenda but you're also facing the pressure of keeping a streak intact.
That was the debacle the Sunset Team was facing when they showed up to play Thursday night. With a bunch of wins and only a few of those wins coming in the form of close games, this team had to answer some questions about how they play when they can't just steamroll their opponents on their way into the win column.
Their Semi-final game against the Perfect Spirals was a close battle in the first half but Sunset picked up momentum in the second half to blow the score open on their way to a comfortable win. However, the finals game would be much different.
As they lined up against the Thursday Night Lights squad in the finals, Sunset almost got a little more than they bargained for.
All season the Sunset offense showed they were more than capable of executing their offensive game plan against any opponent. If they wanted to go with the long ball, no problem. If they wanted to chew up the clock and play a short game, it wasn't a thang. Offensively they did what they wanted when they wanted to do it. Defensively it wasn't much different. They turned most of the leagues QBs into Brett Favre pick-factories, not to mention it can get quite dangerous when the Sunset Secondary gets their hands on the ball. It's a known fact, when a Sunset defender pulls one out of the sky, he/she sniffs out the endzone like a bloodhound.
Even so, the Thursday Night Lights showed up ready to rumble and unwilling to just watch Sunset just be handed the Champ bands. The game was an offensive shootout. It wasn't until early into the second half that Sunset began to cool down and couldn't serve up their touchdowns as quickly and effortlessly as they were used to. As Thursday Night Lights began to close the gap on the scoreboard it seemed that Sunset might unfortunately see their first loss of the season, in the last and final game. As much as the Thursday Night Lights could feel that Sunset was slowing down, the Sunset squad would not be denied. With a new found sense of urgency, the Sunset offense was reborn in the last ten minutes of the game and they put together what would the final and winning touchdown drive.
So here's to Sunset, you played flawless all season and it was apparent you had a lot of fun as a team doing it. You were all able to come together when it mattered most and you pulled it off in the end. Congrats, you are the THURSDAY NIGHT FALL LEAGUE FLAG FOOTBALL CHAMPS!