Lightning Football News...

The Joshua Springs Lightning (12-1, 4-0) finally met their match in a very big and fast Faith Baptist team Friday night at Lightning Field. It was the 2005 CIF 8-Man Div I Championship game and once again the Lightning fell short in obtaining the winners trophy.

This was the third trip to the finals for the Lightning varsity football program in the last 5 years. There are only a few teams in the history of California 8-man football that have done so well in such a short time. Joshua Springs has only had a varsity football program for 10 years and has made the playoffs 8 years in a row. It has won the Agape League Championship four times as well as the three trips to the CIF Finals. The program has had three perfect 9-0 regular seasons. So, do the Lightning have something to be proud of, absolutely!

What is more important is the type of players the Lightning program produces. These are players that put God first, team second and self third. These young men are a quality of men that will effect our society in a very positive way and be a shinning light to others. That is why our program is special.

Coach Roberts has lead the Lightning for seven seasons. He has a record of 60-19, that is a 76% win ratio. He has some of the best assistant coaches in all of California. Their knowledge and dedication is unmatched in 8-Man football. We would like to thank them for the quality they bring to schools program.

Back to the game, The Lightning offense was held to just 149 yds rushing but did pick up 202 yds through the air. Faith Baptist even though they won by a 23 point margin, only had 41 more total yards of offense. So, the game was much closer than the score indicated. Sophomore QB Jesse Frazer was 12 of 26 for 149 yds and Senior Joe Virga was 1 of 1 for 53 yds and a TD on a halfback pass. Frazer finishes the year setting a new single season record of 89 of 174 for 1490 yds passing breaking the old record held by Nate Rynning of 1258 yds back in 2002.

Sophomore Eddie Nixon had 93 yds on 13 carries and Senior Tony Garrido had 40 yds on 11 carries. Speaking of breaking records, Senior RB Tony Garrido broke one of his own by becoming the all time career rushing leader with 2837 yds in just 3 years at the varisity level. The old record was held by Chris Chartier from the 1996-1999 seasons who had 2573 yds rushing. This year was also the first time in school history that we had two RB's rush for over a thousand yards. Garrido had 1039 yds and Nixon had 1056 yds . Senior TE Tim Krapivkin had 5 catches for 65 yds and TD. Junior TE Tommy Higgins had 4 catches for 95yds and a TD. Higgins got his name in the record book by breaking the single season receiving record with 38 catches for 695 yds. The previous record was 38 catches for 620 yds held by Pete Johnson from the 2000 season.

On Defense, Nixon lead with 12 tackles in the game and finished the year as the top man in defense with 150 tackles, just 3 short of tying Justin Peterson for the school record of 153 in a season. Garrido had 11 tackles and became a member of the 100+ club with 115 tackles on the year. Senior JC Roberts had 11 tackles giving him 108 tackles for the year and he was the sack leader with 10.5 sacks on the year. Krapivkin. Higgins and Virga all had 9 tackles a piece. Senior Kyle McClay had Sophomore Boomer Arnold had 4 tackles.

Again, we want to congratulate and thank our 2005 Coaches and varsity team for an awesome year and many memories.

Go Lightning!

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