Chap­ter 18: Fin­ish­ing with a Bang begins with Cody Met­zn­er, a hard-hit­ting play­er for the Cubs, express­ing doubts about the size of the crowd at the cham­pi­onship game on Novem­ber 27, 2021, because of the Thanks­giv­ing hol­i­day. His con­cerns quick­ly dis­si­pat­ed as he entered John W. North High School sta­di­um and saw thou­sands of fans dressed in red shirts, fill­ing the stands. Tick­et sales had reached 2,362, and many more fans arrived at the door, eager to wit­ness the game. Media pres­ence was over­whelm­ing, with reporters from top net­works like ABC, NBC, and ESPN in atten­dance. Even rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Tom Brady’s pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny were present, show­ing inter­est in cre­at­ing a film about the team’s remark­able jour­ney. This over­whelm­ing sup­port made the atmos­phere elec­tric, set­ting the stage for an unfor­get­table night.

Among the atten­dees was Nan­cy Hli­bok Amann, the super­in­ten­dent of CSDR, whose pres­ence high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of the event. She was well-known in the deaf com­mu­ni­ty, with her family’s impact­ful his­to­ry. Dur­ing her inter­view, she spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about the game, empha­siz­ing that the night held much more than a cham­pi­onship title. She hoped that the game would send a pow­er­ful mes­sage to the world about the capa­bil­i­ties of a deaf foot­ball team, com­pet­ing for a tro­phy usu­al­ly claimed by hear­ing teams. Her words under­scored the impor­tance of the Cubs’ jour­ney, which was more than just a fight for vic­to­ry but also a fight to break bar­ri­ers and show­case their ath­leti­cism and resilience on a glob­al stage.

The game began with the Cubs fac­ing imme­di­ate chal­lenges. On their first pos­ses­sion, they failed to cap­i­tal­ize despite a spec­tac­u­lar twen­ty-yard catch by Jory Valen­cia. Faith Baptist’s quar­ter­back, Luke Ras­mussen, took advan­tage of the Cubs’ defen­sive strug­gles and quick­ly put his team ahead with a touch­down. By the end of the first quar­ter, the Cubs were trail­ing 28–0, as Faith Baptist’s aggres­sive offense con­tin­ued to over­pow­er them. The Cubs strug­gled to defend against Faith’s high-pow­ered offense, and the ten­sion mount­ed as the deficit grew larg­er. Despite the ear­ly set­back, the Cubs knew they had to dig deep and find a way to get back into the game.

In a moment of des­per­a­tion, Coach Kei­th Adams made a bold deci­sion to go for a risky fourth down play deep in the Cubs’ ter­ri­to­ry. Felix Gon­za­les, known for his agili­ty and pow­er, took advan­tage of the oppor­tu­ni­ty, mak­ing a stun­ning six­ty-yard run for a touch­down. This play sparked hope for the Cubs, as it was the first sign of their abil­i­ty to fight back against the odds. They con­tin­ued to build momen­tum with Jory Valen­cia catch­ing pass after pass, bring­ing the score to 28–16. The game became more intense as both teams showed signs of aggres­sive play, which even­tu­al­ly led to penal­ties for unsports­man­like con­duct. The phys­i­cal­i­ty of the game only height­ened the stakes, mak­ing each play feel like a bat­tle.

As the game wore on, the Cubs faced sig­nif­i­cant injuries, with Jory suf­fer­ing a foot injury and Kaden Adams sus­tain­ing a bro­ken ankle. Despite these set­backs, the team refused to give up, con­tin­u­ing to fight through the pain and adver­si­ty. They man­aged to score once more, bring­ing the score to 28–22, just one touch­down away from tying the game. The Cubs’ resilience in the face of such adver­si­ty became a cen­tral theme of the cham­pi­onship night. It wasn’t just about the phys­i­cal bat­tle on the field—it was also about men­tal tough­ness, deter­mi­na­tion, and prov­ing to the world that a deaf team could com­pete at the high­est lev­el. Their incred­i­ble jour­ney, filled with chal­lenges and tri­umphs, cap­tured the hearts of every­one watch­ing and became a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of per­se­ver­ance and team­work.