By CJ Gray ’26
The last event of the football season, the award ceremony and banquet for the Class 7a State Champions, just wrapped up this past week last Sunday. This event brought the team and families together one last time to recap the season.
As a senior, I cherished this year’s banquet more, mostly because I knew it was my last one. Many other seniors felt the same way about their last banquet.
Senior Colin Goggin said, “It was a little more emotional than last year, knowing I wouldn’t play with these guys again.’’ There were a lot of memorable moments throughout the season with the banquet being another memory added.
Senior King Liggins said, “I don’t get a second semester with my guys; this is my last time seeing everybody together and I enjoyed it.”
This banquet meant a lot, not just because it was our last time together, but because of what we accomplished this season. We won a state championship which hasn’t been done in forty-four years.
There were several awards given out Sunday night. The first one was the Tom Mitchell Award, which was won by Colin Goggin and Mikey Fitz. The Andrew Wishar award was won by King Liggins and AJ Parochelli. Defensive MVP was won by Charlie Barkmeier and Kameron McGee. I, along with Jaylin Green, won the Offensive MVP. The final award, MVP, was won by Brayden Parks.
There were also awards given out to the unsung heroes of the season. Every scout team player was given an award. These guys really prepared us, we wouldn’t have made it this far without them.
“It felt good to get recognition and that award…we put in a lot of work,” said scout team quarterback Rocco Galasso.
This puts an official close to the very special 2025-2026 Brother Rice Crusader football team.
