The California School for the Deaf's football team has won its second consecutive state championship title! The team from Riverside played in the Southern Section CIF state championship, with the winning score being 54-42 against Faith Baptist High School.
The team described this as nothing short of a miracle, especially after having started out at 14-0 early on in the game. The team celebrated its back-to-back wins with a parade held by the school. The team and coach used American Sign Language to communicate how they felt about their win.
"This is surreal," the coach, Keith Adams shared through ASL. "It was shocking … Generally speaking, it's very, very hard to win that championship game two years in a row."
The win was also huge for the team, which Keith said dealt with some hurdles this season. A lot of the players sustained injuries and the team had to get adjusted to playing without previous teammates who'd graduated. "I had never experienced that in all my years of coaching to have so many injuries in such a short period of time," he said.
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"Many of these students have known each other since they were in kindergarten. They've played not just football but a lot of sports together," Jeremias Valencia, the school's athletic director, explained through an ASL interpreter. "So, these wins show them that they can believe in themselves, that they can do things, that they can achieve certain things. And so for that, it's been quite inspiring to see that positive result on the students."
