Massapequa isn't the only local high school to have sports teams with successful winter seasons.

This year, the Plainedge High School boys football team completed their season with a sterling 10-1 record. They lost the Long Island Class III title game to Huntington, but that hardly put a damper on a remarkable season.

The miracle is that Plainedge had a football team at all.

This past spring, Plainedge area voters rejected the school district's budget on both occasions. It was feared that all Plainedge High School sports teams, not just the always-popular football program, would be lost.

However, Plainedge parents got together and conducted an extraordinarily successful fundraising drive, one that raised no less than the $575,000 needed to keep the high school's athletic programs alive.

The parents, who formed an association called the Plainedge Parents Athletic Club, worked with local businessmen to raise the needed funds. But mostly, they earned the money the old-fashioned way, holding raffles and car washes, along with relentless solicitations from ordinary people in the Plainedge area.

It worked. Not only did Plainedge have a football team, they fielded their best squad since the 1988 season.

Plainedge went into the championship game against Huntington with a 10-0 record. In the big game, the score was tied 14-14 all the way into the fourth quarter. Huntington scored two touchdowns to take a 27-14 victory, but the game represented one of those rare moments when the losing side attracted an extraordinary amount of attention.

Before kickoff, the Red Devils players, according to published reports, saluted on cue to their fans assembled on the visitors' side of LaValle Stadium on the Stony Brook campus. When the contest ended, the players, once again, publicly acknowledged their fans, many of them the parents who spearheaded the fundraising drives. In fact, all during the playoffs, the Red Devil players refused to be introduced individually before the games - as is the custom. Rather, they wanted the stress the unity that allowed the community to fund the team and consequently, give it the inspiration to have a winning season.

Needless to say, when a team goes 10-1, there are plenty of individual heroics along the way. Three Plainedge athletes were named Newsday Players of the Week at various times. Senior quarterback John Schaeffer was named a Player of the Week for his performance in the losing title game to Huntington.

In addition, kicker Joe Minnici was cited for booting a game-winning field goal in the overtime County Championship game against Floral Park. For week two, Matt Baker won Player of the Week honors for his defensive heroics in a 27-0 win over Bethpage.