To start off football season, and to start off the month, the Cleveland varsity football team took the prize Friday night after a strong 20-14 home win against the Woodburn High School Bulldogs. In total, three touchdowns were scored by the Warriors and the final touchdown was followed with a two point conversion. All three touchdowns scored by the Warriors were made in the first quarter.

The game started strong when Tristan Baumann sprinted to the goal line with the ball and scored the first touchdown at 11:40, 20 seconds into the game, resulting in the crowd going wild. There weren’t any more points scored by the Warriors until 6:10, when Max Gillen, junior, scored another touchdown, with no conversions scored. Finally, at 2:49, Jake Cashion Jr. scored the final touchdown, which was followed by a two-point conversion, putting the Cleveland Warriors up 20-0.

When the second quarter rolled around, neither of the teams scored until the Bulldogs scored a touchdown at 4:45, near the end of the quarter. The touchdown was followed by a one-point conversion. By halftime, the Bulldogs failed to score any further points, putting the score at 20-7.

During quarter three, neither the Bulldogs nor the Warriors scored any points, leaving the score still at 20-7. When the fourth quarter came, the Bulldogs scored a touchdown followed by a one-point conversion almost two minutes in at 10:11. This bumped the score to 20-14, moving the Bulldogs closer to the Warriors.

During the rest of the fourth quarter, the crowd was on the edge of their seats. They were praying that the Bulldogs wouldn’t score another touchdown and possibly win the game. During this time, they were cheering on the Warriors to defend hard and keep the Bulldogs from scoring the game winner. Finally, when the fourth quarter ended and the buzzer went off, the crowd went wild and swarmed towards the field in excitement, pushing over the fence in the process. They then dashed onto the field all at once to celebrate Cleveland’s first home victory in two years.

The Warriors’ winning a home game caught almost everyone by surprise. “Part of it is just getting over the hump of not winning a home game,” said head coach Eric Fraser, when asked about what his players did well to win the game. “These guys have been used to losing, and so it kind of caught them by surprise,” said Fraser. According to Fraser, “They had been working hard in the off season.” This is most likely a big part of what won the Warriors the game.