Phrase is key in playoff run

“Why not us?”
A stack of playbooks sits in a pile in the Starfires’ locker room, that simply-stated question in the center of the cover sheet.
Heading into the playoffs, there were some easy answers.
The South Adams High School football team barely had 30 players when it started the year, and had since lost some of those in injury and attrition.
It had just two victories.
And it lost its final six regular-season games.
Still, surprisingly, the Starfires believed. First-year SAHS coach Rick Burkhalter attributes that confidence to the camaraderie his team has strived to build throughout the year.
“What we’ve really tried to create here is a family atmosphere,” he said. “Don’t play for yourself. Quit being selfish. Play for the next guy beside you.”
After South Adams topped a 3-7 Northfield squad in the opening round of the tournament, that confidence would be tested.
The Starfires trailed Adams Central, a team it had lost to by 10 during the regular season, 13-0 with just nine minutes to play. It was time to either fold and start preparing for the basketball, wrestling and swimming seasons, or to fight back and prove their team — their family — was stronger than its record showed.
They chose the latter.
South Adams scored twice in a span of five minutes, taking the lead on a Skylar Schoch two-point conversion run, and sealed their victory when Isaiah Amstutz picked off a pass inside the 1-yard line with just 23 seconds left.
“We just haven’t quit all year,” said Burkhalter. “Any game that anybody’s came and watched us, we haven’t quit. We’ve always battled everybody.
“We’ve grown up. We’ve matured. Our seniors … started being the leaders that I knew they could be. And the underclassmen have followed them.”
Playing in their third sectional title game in four years Friday, the Starfires traded punches with a Southwood team that had won six straight games. They nearly lost in the final minute, but a blocked extra point saved them and sent the game into overtime.
Another block set the stage in the extra period, giving Derek Wanner a chance to kick the game winner after scampering in for a touchdown to tie the game. The junior quarterback a day earlier at practice had urged his team to be the one to break through, to be remembered.
“I was thinking, the third one’s the charm,” said Wanner, who had missed his previous two PAT attempts. “Kicking is a big mental game, so I just had to think it. When the snap came, I knew it was going in.”
Wanner lined up his kick and booted it through the uprights, giving the Starfires their first sectional championship since 1996.
“Once Derek made the field goal, I don’t know,” said senior lineman Klayton Hinshaw, still struggling to wrap his mind around the special moment. “I was celebrating at first, and then I just kind of had my head down and I started to tear up. Words can’t really describe. It was awesome.”
The challenge only gets greater.
South Adams will play Class 1A No. 8 Tri-Central for the regional title.
The Trojans have not lost since dropping the season opener to fourth-ranked Eastern. They have scored at least 24 points in every game, average 36.6. And they’ve recorded five shutouts.
Still, the Starfires buy into the phrase on the front of their playbooks.
“I definitely believe it,” said Hinshaw. “And I think everybody in that locker room believes it too.”
The Starfires are taking that idea — something Burkhalter picked up as an assistant coach during Bellmont’s 2008 run to the Class 3A state title — to heart as they try to bring home their first regional title since 1992.
“We do believe in one another, that we can play,” said Burkhalter. “We just want to get the game in the fourth quarter and have an opportunity to win.”
That’s all the Starfires are asking for — a chance.
So when they take the field in Berne on Friday night, they will do so with one simple thought on their minds.
“Why not us?”[[In-content Ad]]