A month ago, as Central Catholic trudged off the field following a losing effort against Nelson, it might have felt easy to write the Rams off.

Their streak of Mt. Hood Conference titles was over, and they seemed to have slipped down the pecking order of Class 6A state title contenders.

At that moment, senior edge rusher Donnie Vercher III said the team had a come-to-Jesus moment.

“Our mindset, you know, we come from a great lineage,” he said. “Central Catholic’s always been a great program, but that Nelson game, we kinda thought we were just gonna roll over them.

“So, coming back from that game, we really had to look at our identity and see how we were gonna respond to that. How are we gonna make our mentality even tougher? We’re not the top dogs anymore, like some might say, but we’r

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