By James Costello Sports Editor
WHITING — It’s been a long dry spell for Culver.
Since a run of three straight sectional football titles from 1999 to 2001, the Cavaliers haven’t had so much as a whiff of another championship, falling in the first round of sectional play all but one year, in 2007 when the team beat Frontier 25-10 in its first-round game only to drop a semifinal match-up with North Miami the following week.
Tonight, Culver breaks a seven-year drought and hopes to break another as it heads to Whiting for the Class A, Sectional 33 championship against the Oilers.
“If winning the game would validate all the hard work and all the things that we asked our kids to do, that’s more important to me,” said Cavs head coach Andy Thomas. “That our kids are rewarded for all the hard work that they’ve done. We’ve instituted a lot of things that are radically different from what they’ve done before in the weight room and in the summer time and even really throughout the school year. They really started buying into it, and something like this reinforces that everything that they’ve done has been for a reason.”
It’s Thomas’ first championship berth since taking over the program, and the fourth-year head coach is just as proud of the way his players have earned their title shot as he is of the berth itself. On their way to Whiting, the Cavaliers got off to a program-record 5-1 start to the 2009 season, and their road so far in the postseason has been inspired.