Written By: Daniel Britt
Staff Reporter
Liberty’s Varsity football team has officially been forced to forfeit two games this season after a bench clearing fight against Desert Pines in the Adidas National game of the week last Friday (9-21-18).
The game was live all over Twitter and Twitch, and had over 7,000 viewers watching at one point. The game was huge for both teams and Liberty did end up winning with a final score of 33-6.
Sadly, though Liberty’s win against Desert Pines will be changed to a double forfeit because of the huge incident.
Slot receiver Dylan Brogan (12) is not too happy about the teams two forfeits.
“We blew two games to fight a team that we were blowing out,” said Brogan.
The fight started on a kickoff after a Liberty touchdown. A player from Desert Pines was trying to block Liberty’s #32 Caleb Pulu (11) a.k.a. Alaska. Pulu didn’t allow himself to be blocked and a Desert Pines player got mad. The altercation began.
Liberty’s kickoff team started to try and breakup the fight, then Desert Pines players came over and started pushing them and that’s when Desert Pines’ benched cleared. Liberty’s bench cleared after and punches were getting thrown and players were getting tossed. The referees and some police had to come break it up.
After the incident, both head coaches from both teams took their players to their sidelines and had talks with them. The refs let the game go on and Liberty just ran up the score.
Head coach Rich Muraco was interviewed after the game and was asked about the fight.
“Football is an emotional game and you want your kids to play on that edge between playing real nasty and playing real clean, and their high school kids and sometimes emotions get the best of them and that line gets a little blurred and kids cross the line. Then when you have to yell at the team telling them to calm down, it kinda takes the energy out of the spirit of the team,” said Muraco.
Liberty does have to forfeit their next game at home against Chaparral High school next friday night (10-5-18).
Liberty’s 1-4 record does not compare to any record they have had in the past 5 seasons. Last time Liberty started 1-4 was in 2007 and did not make the playoffs.
Hopefully our Patriots can come back from this strongly against their next opponent Green Valley for our Homecoming game on Friday night (10-12-18).
The Patriots need to find a way to win six straight games against our regional rivals. Team likes Green Valley, Coronado, and Foothill.
Six straight wins will give us a pretty good chance to get into the playoffs and get a good seed (ranking in the playoffs off your record). Liberty needs to find their spark and get back on track to have a chance of making the playoffs.
