Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 12, 1993 TAG: 9312120143
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: D-10 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE: RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FAIRFAX LENGTH: Medium
There will be no repeat state Group AAA Division 6 state champion this year, despite the best wishes of the usual mob of supporters and the greatest efforts of some fine players and coaches.
Annandale may not have had the size, the skills or the experience that the defending state champion Pulaski County Cougars had, but Saturday, the Atoms made the plays, walked off a windswept field at W.T. Woodson High with headgear held aloft and strolled to a fleet of buses with some hardware to put in the trophy case back home after stopping the Cougars 14-7.
"Nobody thought we could win this game," said lineman Steve Jreige, one of the few Annandale players who played both offense and defense. "Nobody. Nobody but us."
Much time will pass before what is probably the majority of the proud Cougars will be able to believe it either. The final whistle was only seconds past when many of the players who had been the co-authors of the greatest chapters in the history of high school athletics in Pulaski County fell to their knees and wept bitter tears.
The sight of big Randy Dunnigan, the splendid offensive and defensive lineman for the Cougars, on his knees and in peril of being a stampede victim in the midst of the enraptured Annandale players and fans was almost more than any Cougar at heart could bear.
Misery followed the fallen Pulaski Countians to their dressing quarters where plumbing problems drove them onto their buses dirty and in sweat clothes. Even their departure had an eerily surreal cast to it when diesel exhaust from the waiting bus set off a tumult of fire alarms in the school. The buses pulling out were passed by fire trucks - red lights flashing and sirens screaming - coming in .
Pulaski County left with these somber thoughts: It ran 56 plays, the Atoms ran 34. The Cougars had 204 yards and 11 first downs and Annandale had 151 yards and eight first downs. The Cougars had a first down at the Annandale 36 with 3 minutes, 23 seconds to drive for the win or the tie to cap a comeback from a 14-0 deficit, but did not accomplish the task.
"I felt we were going to score and then beat them in overtime," said halfback Carl Lewis, responsible for all but 66 of the Cougars' yards in his finalgame for them.
Much later, Atoms coach Dick Adams was trying to express the marvelous wonder of his team's accomplishment.
"We'd watched films with the players at least one hour every day this week," he said. "We took time off that we would normally have been on the field to meet and make certain that the players knew what they were supposed to do.
"We knew what Pulaski County was going to do and when they were going to do it. What we did not know was whether we would physically be able to stop it. I have never in my life seen a team like ours play the kind of game they played against a team the caliber of theirs."
Certainly, no Atom was the physical match for the 6-foot-3, 275-pound Dunnigan, or the 6-2, 247-pound Larry Newcomb, or the 6-3, 250-pound Larry Puckett or a number of others. The beefiest player on Annandale's roster comes in at 215 pounds.
"Every team we've played this year is bigger than us," said linebacker and guard Maurice Daniels, a junior. "That doesn't matter to us. All we do is get after people."
Pulaski County had seen its day. This was Annandale's.
"Success is not forever," Pulaski County coach Joel Hicks told his players after it was over. "Failure is not failure."
by CNB