Published: November 30, 2009 07:48 am      

St. Francis wins Division 7 title

DETROIT -- Second verse same as the first.

In a repeat of 2003, St. Francis capped a perfect 14-0 season by beating Hudson for the Division 7 state football championship.

The Gladiators accomplished the feat Saturday with an emphatic 42-8 win at Ford Field. St. Francis defeated Hudson 28-14 for the crown six years ago.

The title is the sixth for St. Francis -- and the second in a row.

The Gladiators thumped Ubly in the finals a year ago.

"This is awesome," senior linebacker Max Bullough said. "Back-to-back state championships, what else can you ask for?"

St. Francis coach Greg Vaughan said winning consecutive crowns was the goal when he took the job in 2008.

"When I came here I put a challenge to (the players)," he said. "St. Francis had won a lot of games, a lot of championships, but had never won back-to-back."

"These seniors did everything they could to push the seniors in front of them last year and make them strong leaders. This year they took over. They took a team with a lot of different guys and bought into our motto "iron sharpens iron." The weakest link you can make stronger. We're here today because of our 15 seniors."

The Gladiators, who never trailed all season, dominated from the start, scoring on all four of their first-half possessions to take a 28-0 lead at half.

"It was ugly," Hudson coach Chris Luma said. "It was not what we wanted, obviously."

"We didn't want to get into a hole early, like the last time we played these guys in 2003, but that's exactly what happened."

St. Francis had a number of standouts: Senior Ben Swan rushed for 117 yards and three touchdowns despite injuring his shoulder; sophomore quarterback Riley Bullough ran the offense efficiently, completing all three of his passes for 85 yards and two touchdowns; Max Bullough and Matt Zakrzewski led a defense that held a high-scoring Hudson offense in check.

St. Francis was ranked No. 1 in the Associated Press poll all season.

"Coming into the season there were a lot of expectations, and that was great," Vaughan said. "It's an awesome thing to be around kids that you can put a lot on. And they were up to the challenge.

"We were not an up-and-down team this season. We were a business-like team. We were hungry. We were driven. The expectations we had for ourselves were probably higher than those (put on us) by anyone else."