-- All things must pass, including record regular-season winning streaks. It took a 1,000-mile journey to Okinawa and a comeback from a 14-0 deficit in the first three minutes to do it, but Yokota met its match in the right arm of Kaleb Robinson, a 12-tackle performance by Don Hampton and the Kubasaki Dragons, 18-14 at Mike Petty. 51-game regular-season winning streak is now history.
-- Robinson is nothing if not resilient. Playing with a separated left (non-throwing) shoulder, Robinson atoned for his four-interception game Sept. 5 at Kadena by going 6-for-9 for 152 yards, including the game-winning 20-yard TD strike to Andrew Candelaria with just over three minutes left.
-- Dionte Waite, 2 catches for 93 yards, each of which set up a Kubasaki touchdown. Word will spread like wildfire throughout the Pacific = cover No. 16 in green like a blanket.
-- There was a reason the Dragons as one chanted "Moun-tain-top! Moun-tain-top!" as coach Fred Bales came over to give the postgame talk to his team. Bales has stated that his team's goal this season is to get back on the mountain, learn how to climb it, learn to win again, as it did in taking the 2005 Class AA title. "Tonight was a step in that direction," he said.
-- The last two times somebody rung up a regular-season loss on Yokota? Panthers simply ran the table the rest of the way, the last game being a Rising Sun Bowl victory in 2000 and 2002. Derick "Rookie" Seward (526 yards, 8 TDs, 53 carries) and the Panthers are still a dangerous team.
-- Should Yokota win its 10th straight DODDS-Japan title and win the Class AA semifinal -- at home -- against Seoul American, the Panthers would host the Class AA title game on Nov. 8. In the three years of DODDS-Pacific football playoffs, the home team has won the Class AA title every year.
-- A tip of the cap to the heartbroken. Robert D. Edgren's last three home losses have each come by one point, the latest Saturday's 14-13 defeat against the American School In Japan.
-- Friday's Kanto Plain Association of Secondary Schools tilt pitting Yokota at ASIJ will be anything but a walkover. The Mustangs are for real and would love nothing more than to halt the Panthers' nine-year Kanto Plain title run.
-- Back to Earth the Guam High Panthers have plummeted the past two weeks. After opening strong with a victory over Southern on Sept. 6, Simon Sanchez and 2003-06 Interscholastic Football League champion George Washington have pummeled the Panthers by a combined 76-6 the past two weeks. First-place Father Duenas is next, on Friday at Big Navy.
-- Speaking of Guam, longest winning streak in the Pacific now belongs to defending IFL champion Father Duenas Memorial, with seven.
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Gotta Disagree
Dave, I love you more than my luggage, but I have to disagree with your spin on this game. This wasn't a regular season game. Yokota's regular season is 7 games this year against mainland teams and Kubasaki's regular season is 5 games against Kadena. This is a bye week exhibition, and I don't think it should be touted as the end of the regular season winning streak. Only a regularly scheduled league game could break a streak like this. It will come, no doubt but it didn't happen last night. Kudos to Kubasaki though for playing and winning a great game. Hopefully there will be a rematch on Nov. 8 with a healthy Tony Presnell.
Streak!
In your words Orny from last years game...."It doesn’t mean a thing in the Japan Football League or Okinawa Activities Council standings. It means nothing in terms of qualifying for the Far East Class AA playoffs."
Last year both coaches was preparing for the post season...why is it different this year? This game came on a bye week for Yokota. A loss is a loss but this isn't a regular season game! The regular should remain intact! The players funded their own transportation to Okinawa...
I guess the teams are not the only ones wanting to take the streak away :(
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Re: Streak!
"Hey, don't feel sorry for us. We're still the headbusters. We ain't sittin' here waitin' to exhale."
"As long as I'm on this team, we will never lose another game."
In the words of "Big Mike" Wright, offensive lineman, and "Little Mike" Chamberlain, Mister Do-Everything for Yokota's 2002 team after they learned they had to forfeit the first two games of the season for using an ineligible player.
That team could have folded in the wake of that. They could have pointed to how they hadn't lost on the field since two years earlier.
Instead, they made no excuses, accepted the fact that they were 0-2, manned up and ran the table, concluding with a 57-14 romp over the Kubasaki Samurai in Rising Sun IV.
In my nearly 30 years with Stripes, those two losses served as the biggest motivator for any team I've seen out here, bar none.
I'll bet the house that last Saturday's defeat at Kubasaki will have the same motivating power for the current group of Panthers, who will now work harder, better, faster, stronger than ever to ensure the same thing won't happen again, no matter who they play.
After the New York Knicks' then-NBA-record 18-game winning streak was snapped in November 1969, point guard Walt Frazier said, "I guess we'll have to start another streak."
So be it with the Panthers.
So be it!
Those headline were in the making long before the defeat! Yes, i know the Panthers are looking forward to start another streak...but thsi streak shouldn't have ended!!!...it was not a regular season game...this isn't the first game lost during a year...they have lost pre-seasons games as well...why not count them in the streak...Panthers will be prowling ...real soon....
BTW, isn't the game home against the Mustangs?
I agree dave
I think Yokota's regular season game winning streak has ended, just like in 2006 There overall winning streak ended, then it became regular season winning steak, now it is a mainland winning streak.. which i think will too come to fall...
Record
Let yokota keep tha record because this is a mainland affair. Not trying to take anything away from okinawa but they are always seen as the best in the pacific and all the other teams are shooting to take them down. But on mainland we see yokota as the ones to beat in most sports for the mainland everything seems to go yokotas way so i think a mainland team should end the record. Though in 2006 yokotas win by one point didnt have anything to do with the Fantastic Four. I was there and it was actually the Birth of new edgren football the Zach Latimore show. So lets get that straight. And to me that 1 point loss gave me and what I believe the rest of edgren a sense of pride that we all could keep up with the best and one day surpass them. Though a lot of tears were shed that day I believe that was one of the best edgren football games in history. Let the record stand but yokota took that L but stop worrying about it because it was a by week you did up to play a game that week for w/e reasons. But the record should stay intact and hopefully edgren is the ones that topples the yokota record when they meet up next. And Big ups to "Z' do ya thang in tha college level man
thats not me
first off, id like to say that i agree that the winning streak shouldnt have ended with that game, secondly i am zach, 2008 edgren alumni is not me
Cograts to Kubasaki though
Yokota's Win Streak
I would have to agree with the above statement. The way people is treating this win streak is like saying Ohio State loss to USC is not a loss because it was not a game in the Big Ten (Mainland , in this case) so their Big Ten winning streak is still in tack, which is probably true. But the bottom line is a loss is a loss. I beleive winning the Class AA title should be the goal, just as Kubaski has said, if you are lucky to go undefeated then so be it. Also unfortunatley there are only 2 teams on Okinawa, so if there was more teams, and not splitting them like before, then I guess they could also have a full season. But to close, the only team only teams that Yokota has beat was Kubasaki last year and Guam in the playoffs. 2005 they lost to Seoul in the playoffs, 2006 lost to Kadena in the playoffs (AT YOKOTA), and last year lost to Kadena in the playoffs. What would benefit all of the kids if money was available, is that all of the schools in class AA play each other one time in the regular season and then do a single elimintaion playoff instead of each location having a champion which will always be Seoul on Korea (Only AA school) Guam (Only DoDDs school) and either Kubasaki or Kadena and for the past 9 years Yokota on the mainland. But back to reality, the above will not happen.
well said
well said
Yokota's win streak
From the beginning, and assuming the money was there, I'd have loved to have seen the eight Class AA teams play their conference foes twice and teams outside of conference once each, with the top four qualifying for a single-elimination playoff.
At the time a football playoff was being discussed, Matthew C. Perry still had a team. Conceivably, we could have had Osan American, Daegu American and Perry, along with either Robert D. Edgren or E.J. King forming nine-man teams -- as Rota does in Europe. Same as Class AA -- Japan squads play each other twice and Korea once each, and vice versa, with all four teams qualifying for a single-elimination playoff.
Then, as they do in Europe, stage the Class AA and Class A title games in the same location. Not out of the realm of possibility to consider Tokyo Stadium, a public facility near the American School In Japan which is ridiculously cheap to rent, or Koza City Stadium near Kadena Air Base on Okinawa.
And then ... How about pitting the DODDS-Europe champions (well, two of them, anyway) against the Class AA and A champions?
Thoughts
If I had to guess right now, I would think that Edgren will be the team to beat the streak. Excellent coach and great kids.
The streak is a regular season winning streak. This game was just like the preseason games played against Japanese schools. If you count this game, than the winnning streak ended a few years ago. The streak is not that big a deal to most, but to those kids they don't want to be the ones to have it end on their watch. This was a bye week for the regular season, the kids paid their own way down, and it was an exhibition. I know you gotta sell papers but let's be objective. What does the rest of the sports blog nation think?
No hating on Kubasaki, they did a great job beating Yokota, but it wasn't a regular season game for either team. ASIJ will not have a good Friday night, I believe. A-11 is crap.
Thoughts?
I love your first and last comment; "Edgren will be the team to beat the streak" and "A-11 is crap". Perhaps you didn't realize it, but ASIJ beat Edgren with the A-11 on Saturday. I saw ASIJ use the A-11 at Kinnick and it seems to work for them. They're not a big team so they're using an offense that puts more athletes on the field. That being said, I believe they'll lose on Friday night. They've had a good 3 - 0 run but Yokota will be too strong for them.
Yokota lost, Yokota lost, Yokota lost. Deal with it.