12/15/02 The CIF Division 10 football final with the Lompoc Braves had not begun and yet Serra fans had an inkling of what was going down before the National Anthem finished. The united voices of nearly two thousand Lompoc fans filled the stadium with the crescendo of "the home of the Braves."

This crowd had already raucously cheered on their young champions from warmups to the coin toss, and continued on until the Braves left the field with a 16-13 win over the previously undefeated top-ranked Cavaliers.

"This is for you guys," beamed quarterback Andrew Jones. "This is for all you guys."

Robin Luken agreed."This is for all the people in Lompoc, and the coaching staff. They've worked hard all year long and they truly deserve it."

For Dick Barrett, the only other CIF champion football coach in Brave history, it was the Braves themselves who impressed him."I had these guys when they were freshmen, and they're a hardworking bunch. This is just great."

Derek Duran and Dave Gaspar were elated at games end. They had faced the challenge of covering 6-foot-2 Devin Stearns and 6-6 Chris Hemphill. "Defense wins championships like coach Luken says," the 5-7 Gaspar shared. "We knew we could cover them. We've been covering taller wide receivers all the time. Me and Derek, we ain't the tallest guys. But we had the pressure, we had help deep, we had everything tonight."

"You know, we're a great fourth quarter team. We're the best defense on the Central Coast. We manned up on size, trying to get pressure by routing and we came through at the end with that pick by Matt Winn," said Gaspar.

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"He was tough to cover," Duran said of Stearns, his assignement. "He gets to the ball pretty fast. This is such a memorable moment for me, and the team. I'm so glad we came up and beat this great squad from Serra."

Speaking of Serra, Cavalier coach Scott Althoffer was still proud of his guys in defeat. "We got down," he said. "We had a hard time with Lompoc. But our team never quit."

Lompoc's Matt Winn agreed that Serra wasn't exactly the easiest fruit on the tree to pick.

"We had to work hard for these guys," Winn said. "They were quick, and they played us tough."

As for when the Braves had fallen behind 13-10, Winn said "We just kept a positive mind and we played tough, played through it."

Lineman Mike Slaughter reminded "I told you all CIF that we would win it."

Fellow extra-large Justice Clegg said "We told ourselves in January that we were going to bring back the championship rings. We did."

Strong safety Bryce Luken was ecstatic. "Our D-line came through for us a lot. When we neeeded them to, they got pressure on the quarterback to throw up a horrible pass like that, and Matt Winn was just sitting back there doing what he's supposed to, and picked it off and came through for us. It was a good play."

Wingback Joey Gastelo loved his role in the big game.

"They knew Matt Winn and Robert (Adams) were the bulls on the team and they were out to get 'em. They forgot about me." A pass from Jones to Gastelo set up the winning score.

Armando Gutierrez just beamed about being "so happy" about his part, a first quarter field goal that proved to be the winning margin.

Robert Adams also pointed out how tough the Cavaliers played, and how great it was to win against such a good team. "I knew we could do it," Adams said.

Brian 'The Stadium' Huyck summed it up for the champions. "It was a tough game out there. I feel great! We brought the title home where it belongs."

And once more I heard the Braves mantra from Huyck. "Defense wins championships, and that's what happened tonight."