YFL Panthers LLR's Team of the Year

Lompoc’s Team of the Year for 2008 is the YFL Panthers.

The Panthers went undefeated (11-0) including a come-from-behind victory over the Paso Robles Bearcats in the Super Bowl to win the Central Coast Youth Football League Junior Title.

It was that undefeated season, and no doubt the triumph over Paso, a feat which few other local grid squads have been able to accomplish in recent years, which impressed Lompoc Locker Room’s Blue Ribbon Panel. The group of 12 sports aficionados cast six votes for the Panthers, as many as for all the other eight nominees combined.

Not only did the YFL’ers emerge victorious, they were the first youth team in the seven-year history of the award to win. All previous honorees were high school teams.

Other 2008 nominees included Lompoc High’s Los Padres League champion baseball team, and LOST, Lompoc’s Other Swim Team, an aggregation of Masters swimmers led by Frank Piemme and Jurgen Schmidt. Each attracted two votes. Cabrillo boys cross country picked up one vote as did Cabrillo’s girls water polo team, Lompoc Locker Room’s Team of 2007.

“I can’t say enough about our kids,” said head coach Frank Taitague. “It took a lot of hard work on their part to get where they are.”

At Friday’s taping of the Lompoc Locker Room awards show to be aired on Monday, assistant coach Pablo Martinez shared a previous unknown detail of the heart-stopping Super Bowl victory.

After 10 games the Panther coaching staff implemented two new defenses just for the Paso Robles game. The new defenses involved not just different assignments but different positions for many key players, a high-risk change for a team made up of mostly sixth graders. “But these kids are really smart,” said Martinez.

Still and all the Bearcats went up by 20-8 after one quarter before the Panther defense took command. The Cats did not allow another score in the game.

Meanwhile Austin Hayes scored from 18 yards out to close the gap before halftime and in the second half Matt Hamon forced a fumble at the Paso four-yard line and Chris Taitague scored on the next play. With a two-point kick by Esteban Sandoval, Lompoc took a 24 -20 lead. Early in the fourth quarter, Creighton Morales and Trevor Gioiene sacked the Paso quarterback in the end zone for a safety to push the score to 26-20.

Paso drove twice to the Lompoc 25 in the closing minutes but the Lompoc defense stopped both.

The Lompoc Locker Room awards show featuring the Panthers will air on Monday at 5:30 p.m. on TAP-TV Channel 25.

Lompoc Locker Room’s Coach of the Year will be announced tomorrow.