11th Marine Cannon Cockers

Nobody on the 11th Marine Regiment football team had a chacne to lick thier wounds. So they all decided to lick the competition. Just four day after suffering a heart wrenching loss to Mag-39, the Cannon Cockers - still stinging from defeat - were forced to pick themselves off the floor. Thier was no time to sulk. There was much work to be done. And the team went right to it, rolling over School Of Infantry 14-0 at the 43 Area feild to improve to 5-1 and clinch the Southern Division Title. "We know we are the best team on the base," Coach Jacob Puda said after his squad knocked off the Rough Ryders, the leagues lone remaining unbeaten team. "The expectaions of this team are sky high. We expect to win every game. What happend last week with Mag we came down to the wrong level. But we still feel very good about our chances." And with playmakers like Larry Lawrence, nobody can blame Puda. The dynamic speedster delivered two touchdowns -- the first was a punt return of 65 yards and the other was an 80 yard pass reception from QB Steven Phelps. Not bad production from a guy who only touched the ball 10 times the entire game but managed to account for more than 200 total yards. "I know i need to get Lawrence the ball more," Puda said. "This was one of thoes days, where a guy just proves how good he is. -- Lawrence offers this team a huge spark. He's the kinda that every time he get's the ball you dont know what he'll do next, so he's very exciting to watch." Lawrence, a 5-foot-7 155 pounder won the 2001 Golden Helmet player of the year award believes the quick game after losing to Mag was a blessing in disguise. "It was good to strike back quick," Lawrence said. "We needed to come back, play hard and forget last week's game." One guy who played hard but didnt have much to show for it, was SOI's TB Diquane Mitchell. SOI's ground attack was one of the main reason's why SOI had flourished with a 4-0 record. But that wasnt going to be the case with 11th Marines. "There was no where to go," Mitchell said. " There were no holes. We played like shit. Put that in big bold letters. We just didnt play our game." Said Puda of his squads defense:" Our defense is awesome, they always play hard and pride themselves on shutting people out and they showed that today. I have to give props to Coach Long. He's the best thing that could have happend to our defense, he's an awesome defensive coach." SOI coach Brett Turek says the loss could actually be a good thing for his team in the long run. "I dont think we were beaten physically," Turek said. " We basically had to bad plays...i think we'll be there at the end. We're going to use this game as motivation. This was a reality check for us and we'll use it to improve. The team will wrap up the regular season next Monday vs. MCTSSA at 43 Area @1700.