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Slaughter Sun Jun 28 2009
Slaughter Win CIFL Championship; Go Undefeated
It was an ominous start for the Chicago Slaughter as they took on the Fort Wayne Freedom in the CIFL Championship Saturday night at the Sears Centre. It was the first time all season that the Slaughter would be shutout in the first quarter. If not for a 52-yard field goal by Chris Nendick before the half ended they would have been tied for the first time all season going into half time, which is uncharacteristic of Slaughter. It would be a momentum changer for them however.
Things picked up in the second half and they would eventually right the ship to win the CIFL Championship defeating the Freedom 58-48. "You rarely find professional teams going undefeated through out the whole season and winning the big game," said Championship MVP, Donovan Morgan.
"The Patriots went undefeated, but lost the big game. I just didn't want our team to go out their and be like the Patriots, but we over came that," said Morgan He had five catches for 78-yards and three touchdowns.
Undefeated in the regular season the Slaughter took their success all the way into the postseason going 14-0. Head Coach Steve "Mongo" McMichael said, "Man, I'm finally undefeated." Mongo talked about how many times he had come close to going undefeated in football career, but always coming up short in the end.
"It is so hard to do in today's sports, ups and downs, guy's get hurt," said McMichael. He took a different approach with his team at half time then most new coaches would.
"You would think most coaches that never played the game would go in there and blow their tops, yelling at them," he said "I told them, guy's settle down. Go out there and have fun."
Slaughter Quarterback, Russ Michna was grateful after the game. "I just want to say thank you to the Slaughter Organization for letting us be apart of this," said Michna.
Michna, who was the QB for the now defunct Arena League didn't know if he ever be playing again. "Once the Slaughter contacted me I started talking to these guys [Bobby Sippio and Donovan Morgan] this is a great opportunity to keep on doing something," he said. "It has been a lot of fun, we have great times. This is a great group of guys. I can't say anything bad about them."
Michna was 14-for-20 with 182-yards. His performance all season long earned him MVP honors.
