By Ray Brewer

Thu, Nov 20, 2008 (midnight)

It's time for me to have a slice of that humble pie.

Basic football fans, as much as it pains me to write this, you were right — the Wolf Pack had a good football team this year.

Check that, the were better than good. They were great.

If only I would've listened to the players who predicted a memorable season. Like most teams full of optimism at the beginning of the year, athletes at Basic warned they were better than I predicted. I didn't think they'd make the playoffs.

Some three months later, they proved me wrong. Basic won the Southeast Division and defeated rival Green Valley High in the Henderson Bowl for the first time in five years to finish 9-3 overall.

More importantly — not that anything is more important than Henderson Bowl — Basic won a playoff game and advanced to the Sunrise Regional semifinals. Its season ended Nov. 14 with a 42-27 loss to Del Sol.

"We knew we were better than everyone thought," Basic coach Jeff Cahill said. "We had a good mix of kids who were scrappy and never gave up. We fought until the end."

Scrappy is an understatement.

Unlike other teams that reached the regional semifinals, Basic's roster was missing one key component. It didn't have one player who will play Division I football, something that ultimately caught up with them in the loss to Del Sol, whose Derek Eamon was a man among boys, rushing for 412 yards and five touchdowns.

But Basic had a lot of heart, a great offensive scheme and a sense of school pride unlike any other team in Southern Nevada. It was the perfect combination for a storied year, a campaign that proved to be one of the best runs Basic has had since the late 1980s.

"I couldn't have asked for a better year," Cahill said. "We had a lot of fun."

I've been more accurate in predicting the outcomes with the valley's other schools. My prediction of Del Sol winning the Sunrise Region and Bishop Gorman capturing the Sunset Region are still possibilities heading into the Nov. 21 championship games.

As for Basic, only one thing can make this past season a bigger success — duplicating the result next fall. I'll wait until then to make any predictions, but let's just say it will be hard to replace the combination of quarterback Robby Faiman and wide receiver Justin Burdno and Jeff Pozdol.

But it's not impossible.

Look what Cahill did in his first year at the helm of the program. He helped bake my humble pie.

Sports Editor Ray Brewer can be reached at 990-2662 or ray.brewer@hbcpub.com.