For the first time in his stint as Owen Valley's football coach, Eric Crouch was surrounded by happy, smiling faces in the post-game huddle.

The Patriots knew nothing but headwinds in last year's frustrating 0-10 season. The message since then had been 'never again.' There's still plenty of season left and many tougher challenges ahead, but for one night, OV got to have a long-awaited celebration following its 46-24 win at Brown County last Friday.

"You could just see it, especially with some of the seniors and kids who had been through the grind of last year," Crouch said. "It was a big exhale for them, finally getting a win.

"We were feeling happy after a game where we still made some mistakes, but yeah, they are things we can fix. There's always things to work on."

Crouch always had

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