LODI -- The rain stayed away on Saturday night, keeping the new artificial turf dry during Saturday night's Sac-Joaquin Section Division V championship game. The Grape Bowl didn't stay dry all night.
After the final seconds ticked off the clock, the field was hit with a shower of tears as the large Le Grand crowd stormed the field to celebrate the first football section title in school history after a 61-7 win over Highlands.
There was no use trying to hold the tears back. Not on this night. Not after coming ever so close to winning the section title in 1995, 2004 and 2009 only to go home empty handed.
The Bulldogs finally had their elusive blue banner and they were going to celebrate.
There were waterworks everywhere you looked.
There was Bulldogs head coach Rick Martinez, struggling to even get the words out as he held up the banner in front of his team.
There were fathers sobbing as they hugged their sons. Mothers wiping away tears as they snapped pictures, doing their best to capture this special moment forever.
Make no mistake about it, these boys returned to Le Grand heroes.
"I caught the fever," said Chris Diaz, who played on the '95 team and was on the sideline Saturday watching this group do what he and his teammates couldn't. "I don't have any relatives on the team. I called in sick the last couple weeks to watch these guys play.
"It's nice to look up in the stands and see a decent crowd. My mom has been going to games. I haven't seen it like this in 15 years."
All the seniors know the pain Diaz and his teammates felt in '95 after a 9-7 loss to Mariposa in the title game. The Bulldogs let the title slip away last year in a loss to Capital Christian, blowing a double-digit lead.
"This feels great," said running back/linebacker Bob Perez. "It finally erases that ugly feeling I've had since last year. I told our juniors you don't want to go what we went through."
Talking to the players, you get a sense they weren't just trying to win the title for themselves.
They wanted to bring home the banner for the people in
Le Grand and Planada and all the players who played before them.
"I don't think any team in the state wanted to win as bad as we did," said senior Alex Martinez, who caught two touchdowns.
"All the torture is finally over. We finally got our blue banner."
The Bulldogs may have to make room for another one next year. Quarterback Alex Bucio returns along with his favorite target Zach Moreno. Running back Daniel Guizar is also coming back to help give
Le Grand the foundation for another potent offense.
Rick Martinez can worry about that in a few months. His biggest problem now may be figuring out where to hang that team picture featuring that beautiful new banner.
Although something tells me Martinez has had a spot picked out for a couple years.
"It's going right over the fireplace," he said. "I want everyone to see it. This is for the community, everybody was a part of this. We're finally bringing the banner home."
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