State championship preview: David versus Goliath

SUPERIOR - Prior to Superior’s championship game against Fairview, Head Coach Allen Labbe will show his squad two photos.

Both are from the only Superior team to win a state championship. Both are from the game in 2008 that won the Bobcats that title.

The first is of a sophomore Bobcat, who Coach Labbe said was the biggest on the squad that year, looking up at two seniors from Webaux.

"They were trying to intimidate him," Coach Labbe said. "He was a little sophomore and he just stood there, he didn’t back down one bit. And he played well."

The second photo is what Coach Labbe called "the play of the game", where Webaux had a fourth down with two yards to go. If Webaux made the first down, they would have been set up to score a touchdown and claim the championship.

But the Bobcats had other ideas.

"We stuck them in the backfield," Coach Labbe said. "One guy couldn’t bring him down. But one of our guys got him and then another – it was like a bunch of stinging bees coming in there. Like a bunch of hungry dogs who need meat."

All season the Bobcats have been hungry for victory, they’ve been hungry to prove themselves against opponents much bigger than them.

In the championship game against Fairview this weekend, Superior will have one more chance to show what they have.

"Fairview is a monstrous team," Coach Labbe said. "They are probably, per position, 40 to 50 pounds bigger than us – so we are going to talk about David and Goliath."

With that in mind, Coach Labbe said he is going to focus on team tackling during practice this week.

"We aren’t going to beat them if one of us does all the tackling," Coach Labbe said. "Everyone had to float to the ball, just like we’ve been doing the last six weeks."

Coach Labbe said that team tackling has been the motto for the Bobcat defense all year.

"The fact that it is a team game," Coach Labbe said. "Outworking them in practice is huge. We are going to focus on the fundamentals and outworking them everyday. Obviously we don’t have a camera to see what they are doing, but we have to take pride in our hearts that we are outworking them."

Kickoff for the state championship is in Superior at 1 pm on Saturday. On Thursday, the Booster Club will host a pep rally at 6 pm in the high school with a chili cook-off.