2002 D-2 State Champions - Front row (l-r) Dean Schneider, Tom Fletcher, Shane Isom, Justin Kruse, Ryan Hickey, Matt Schaaf, Kiel Neumann, Tim Krugman, Matt Willis, Dan Haggerty, Jed Givens, Coach Darold Schneider. Back Row (l-r) Cameron Everitt, Tom Earley, Tim Schneider, Marcus Zakrzewski, Gary Cuddy, Ray Timmerman, Curt Mahony, Jess Reiman, Tim Shoemaker, Zach Ascherl, Kevin Ohri, Adam Koenig, Mike Simons, Ryan Kelly, Will Mahony, Nick Welding, Charles Shields, Aaron Jeffrey, Head Coach Tony Allen, Coach Darin Schneider, Par Grutsch.

Congratulations are in order for the O'Neill Sta. Mary's Cardinals football team.

The Cardinals finished the 2002 football season with a perfect 13-0 record. The Cards averaged on offence 50 points per game while limiting their opponents to 5.5 points per game. The Cards 45-pointed 8 off their 13 opponents they played this year.

Most of the players on the Cardinal roster were not born the last time the Cards had a State Championship team in 1984.

Coach Tony Allen commented, "There were a couple of times when teams had chances to take leads on us and the boys never backed down from any adversity or controversy."

"Offense has always been a strength the four years I have been here. We have always been able to score points and gain yards. But really the most crucial difference ahs been the defense. In the eleven games we had lost in the three previous seasons our offense scored 20 some points a game but our defense gave up 40 pints a game. We ran a 4-2 defense which was more of read type defense. In order to make out linebackers less likely to be blocked, we went to a 3-1 defense. It enabled our one linebacker to be protected from blocks. Going into the Lindsay game we have only give up 106 yards of total offense. In 13 games we had only given up 72 points. So we were only giving up about 5 points a game. In the first half of the Lindsay game, Lindsay was inside our twenty yard once and in the second half they were inside our twenty twice. Curt Lindsay only scored a touchdown once in the game. So I think our defense was crucial to our season. When there were chances for other teams to score and cash in on us our defense was there to slam the door on them.

As far as next season's prospects, Ryan Kelly is our only starter coming back. Ryan was lost to an appendectomy our second game of the year and didn't return until the Lynch game which was our seventh game of the year. Juniors Kevin Ohri and Nick Welding played quite a bit. Curt Mahony, as a sophomore, was our starting kicker. He did an excellent job. He dislocated a shoulder in the Ewing game. We have kids coming back. We have some young kids who will be freshman next year who have decent size. We will have a young team but we will definitely have some talent."