PAL to play in Super Bowl

12U club finishes regular season 7-0

By ALEX SPONSELLER
Posted 10/25/18

The Warwick Police Athletic League 12U youth football team cruised through the regular season, taking a perfect 7-0 record into the postseason and rolling past some of the state's other top-tier clubs. It has been a historic season for PAL 12U, and the

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PAL to play in Super Bowl

12U club finishes regular season 7-0

Posted

The Warwick Police Athletic League 12U youth football team cruised through the regular season, taking a perfect 7-0 record into the postseason and rolling past some of the state’s other top-tier clubs.

It has been a historic season for PAL 12U, and the next step will be the Ocean State Pop Warner Super Bowl on Sunday, Nov. 4 at Cranston Stadium. If PAL wins, the next step will be the regional tournament, then the national tournament after that.

“We’ve played some really good competition, but we have been beating teams by an average of about 33 points. We’ve allowed 31 points and have scored 242,” said PAL 12U head coach Bruce Perreault, who had a feeling that his team would be one of the last clubs standing come playoff time. “We definitely knew that we had some good talent this year, coming off of last year, having two teams that combined talent, we now have a very hungry team that wants to win.”

Perreault feels that his team’s hunger and motivation stems from 2017, when the two clubs went through a year of transition and did not produce the results that they had hoped for. Thanks to a new alignment, the two teams merged into one for 2018, and came in ready to prove their worth to the rest of the state.

“Last year was a successful season in terms of the kids learning the game, on paper it didn’t look as successful as it was. Every year the kids learn something, but last year was tough for the teams morale-wise … the scores of some of the games didn’t actually reflect (their performance),” said Perreault.

Now, with the regular season in the books, Perreault and his staff believe that not only can the team win the upcoming Super Bowl, but it has the pieces to potentially take the next two steps and qualify for nationals. PAL has sent teams to the national tournament in 2016 and 2003 … and this year’s team appears to be as dominant as any in recent memory.

“We (believe we can make it to nationals), but we don’t take it for granted,” said Perreault, who stresses the basics to his club every night on the practice field. “We practice our fundamentals, we bring it back to square one every practice. We are very humble in regards to knowing that anything can happen. We feel like we have a real chance at making it to the national championship but we need to figure it all out and continue to grind every day at practice.”

The kids have enjoyed their successful season, and are looking forward to playing on the state’s biggest stage in a couple of weeks. Perreault hopes that his players will continue to work hard, have fun, and stay focused on the ultimate goal.

“The kids are so happy. After the game they are always talking about what is going on, what they did during the game. Once we get to practice though, that is all left behind,” said Perreault. “We don’t talk about the victories that we’ve had. Before every game we go back to 0-0, and we try to put in their psyche that, ‘we had fun on Sunday because for the hard work that we did in practice.’”

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