So Avella's win over Fort Cherry is a debate: Good football juju? A team just gelling? Luck?

As the only member of the media on site -- the guys in the press box almost fell off their chairs when I showed up; I'll have to do it more often -- I witnessed something that I am still at a loss to explain.

I am a fan of all my schools, and I want to see them all do well, so it was divided loyalties for me Friday night. It was Avella's homefield, so I was with them, even though their chances for a win were slim.

There's a lot of crap going around about what a crappy game Fort Cherry must've played in order to lose. That's exactly what it is: Crap.

Fort Cherry showed up. Nick Hurley showed up. Gary Kiefer showed up. Tanner Garry showed up. Corey Garry showed up. The team did not play substandard football.

Fort Cherry had some really painful penalties -- an 85-yard touchdown run that would have given FC the lead in the last two minutes of the game was called back because of a block in the backfield. They got frustrated, and they got sloppy.

Avella kept it close, stopped Fort Cherry on some drives and capitalized on their mistakes. Avella played a good game and chose to go for a pair of two-point conversions, which made the difference in the end.

Fort Cherry didn't give them anything. To say that they did not only belittles Avella's win, but all those Fort Cherry kids who came out to play. And they did play, all four quarters.

Me and the 200 other people who were at the game can tell you that, although I'm sure that, by now, more than 1,000 are claiming to be there.

In the second half, the community decided that Avella was going to win, and you could see that it fed the team.

Halfway through the third quarter, there was a thundering noise and the pressbox vibrated. The announcer and assistants looked at each other and asked if it were the bleachers, as if they had never heard it before. 

The students crowded the sidelines, chanting "Here we go, Eagles, here we go, Eagles." The chant was taken up by everyone on Avella's side of the field.

By the end of the game, there was a shared awareness that something special was happening. I saw those kids walking around with their heads up.

In the end, you might call me sentimential, but I think the difference was that Avella believed in the Eagles Friday night. They were behind their team for the first time in possibly a decade, and the team delivered.

It would have been almost impossible not to.