Hard-luck Lancers: East Union has to be the best .500 team in the Sac-Joaquin Section
MANTECA — East Union’s gauntlet through the rugged Valley Oak League schedule this season ended with three of their losses to four of the top-13 ranked Sac-Joaquin Section teams ending in the bitter category of “close.”
What ‘might have been’ is no consolation for the hard-luck Lancers, who play in one of the toughest leagues in the section, regardless of division, and their 5-5 mark (2-4 VOL) heading into this week’s playoffs may be foolishly misleading to their first-round opponent.
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While former NFL coach Bill Parcells may be right after he famously once said that a team is what its record says it is, East Union has got to be the best .500 team in the section.
The Lancers stumbled big at The Corral in their league opener against MaxPreps No. 6-ranked Oakdale, but since then have held halftime leads against No. 3 Central Catholic and fourth quarter leads against No. 10 Kimball and No. 13 Manteca, only to come up short.
“Right now, we’re the team that doesn’t finish,” said first-year East Union coach Mike Kuhnlenz. “That’s what everyone is saying and right now we’re proving people (right) that we haven’t finished yet. We’re still working to get there. Our kids do not stop fighting. They refuse to give in. That’s why I love them and why we’re in these (close) games with teams that are really, really good. We’ve just got to put it all together and finish.”
But for a highly contested dropped pass in the corner of the end zone on a two-point conversion against Kimball (9-1, 5-1) with 40.2 seconds left in the game Friday, the Lancers might have finished the regular season with a sweet victory.
“We’re aggressive and we don’t back down,” said Kuhnlenz, who coached the previous three seasons at Kimball. “We felt like we wanted to go for it (and make it) to put some pressure on them. They would have had like 34 seconds left, but we felt like if we did make (the conversion), that we would seal the deal (for the win).”
East Union senior quarterback Luke Weaver stood toe-to-toe with Jaguar senior quarterback Nicholas Coronado Friday as the pair each threw five touchdown passes for their squads.
Weaver also rushed for two second-quarter scores in a 19-0 run that got East Union back into the game after the Lancers gave Kimball a 24-0 first-quarter head start.
“We’ve been in a lot of close games this year,” said Lancers junior receiver Dylan Lee, who has 1,176 receiving yards and 15 touchdown catches this season, which led all section receivers going into the Kimball contest. “We haven’t learned how to finish quite yet. This one really hurt … for me personally.
“Starting Monday, we have to have good practices every day,” Lee added. “We’ve had one bad practice every week of all three of (the close losses). We’ve got to get our priorities straight and come out and practice hard every practice.”
Friendly foes
As players lined the 50-yard line for handshakes following Friday’s battle, each Jaguar paused to give East Union assistant coach Barry Keith a sincere hug after Keith had been an assistant coach the past two years at Kimball coaching the lines.
“I love those guys,” Keith said. “They’re great people. Those are great kids. I’m happy for them that they won, but sad for our guys that we lost. No matter how you look at it they’re great kids on both sides.”
Said Kuhnlenz, “That’s a really potent offense over there. I kind of know a thing or two about those boys and they are a great football team. You’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. We knew they could score at any point, and they proved it again. Hat’s off to them. They did a good job and made more plays than we did.”
This article originally appeared on The Record: East Union has to be the best .500 team in the Sac-Joaquin Section
