Culver City Observer -

At the end of every sports season there is only one champion. There is only one team that can hold up that championship trophy so when a great team misses the championship mark it's a big disappointment.

In the case of the 2019 Centaur football team the hurt runs deep because they went into the CIF semifinal Division 5 game with a perfect 12-0 record and the No. 1 ranking. Losing to St. Paul 14-10 on November 22, was a bitter pill to swallow but sports can humble even the greatest warriors. "It's hard to put into words when you have an ending that's disappointing," said Culver City head coach Jahmal Wright a few days ago.

Wright realizes success does not always end with a championship ring on your finger. "A season when you win all of your games but one is a successful season. It was a successful season with a disappointing ending."

Wright knows his team fought hard until the end. "I am real proud of this group," said Wright. "I know the last game against St. Paul they played hard. They may not have played their best game but they played hard. That was the kind of character this team had. We had great senior leadership. We set a goal to win every game we played so I am very proud of our team."

Now Wright has his sights set on 2020. "In 2018 we had a lot of players that were leaving so we had a lot of question marks and for us to answer the bell with a lot of underclassmen we were very happy about that. Now those guys are going to be seniors so I guess a lot of people be sing our praises and looking at us as a very good team coming back because we will have so many returning starters."

After winning the CIF championship in 2018 and having an outstanding 2019 season one of Wright's jobs will be to keep everyone on the same page. "Our goal is to stay humble and stay focused and not think we are better than what we are and hopefully we can start 2020 in the right direction," said Wright.

Wright continued to say, "We had something to prove this past year because we had so many new starters so with those players next year coming back I will tell them to remember all of the hard work it took to get us close and we came up short. So it's going to take even more work to overcome that. I just hope we understand that and we will."

Another plus going into the 2020 season is the whole coaching staff is expected to return. "Our coaching staff will be another year stronger and wiser," said Wright.