Time for this Cadillac to stretch its legs

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I thought it awfully strange almost two weeks ago when Brian Mustain, coach at Beckman, gave D’Amato Tyson the night off to rest his legs. Give him a few days off of practice, OK. Use him sparingly in a game, OK. But the whole week off, and then the game against Woodbridge -- a 20-16 game that went down to the wire -- just so he could have fresh legs a week later for the league opener against Corona del Mar?

I thought, if the coach is gonna risk a loss to a winless team for Tyson to get fresh, then Tyson better run for 300 yards against Corona del Mar.

Not ... even ... close.

‘The game against Woodbridge didn’t mean anything,’ Mustain said this week. ‘The reality is that the last two years we’ve won one league game. He’s our Cadillac. Sometimes your Cadillac needs a tuneup. We wanted to get him as fresh as he could be.’

CdM beat the previously undefeated Patriots, 22-3, in the Pacific Coast League opener. Tyson carried 19 times for 77 yards.

‘He ran better than he had been,’ said Mustain, who admitted that Beckman has a lot of repetitive motion injuries that are only healed through rest. ‘He was trying to break two and three tackles. That 77 yards he gained, he’s our whole offense.’

Beckman (4-2) faces Irvine (5-1) on Friday in a must-win game for both. ‘The team that wins moves into second,’ Mustain said. ‘The team that loses slides to last.’

And races are tough to win starting from last. Even when driving a Cadillac.

Got three minutes? Check out the animated rendition of Bruce (The Boss) Springsteen’s ‘Pink Cadillac’ by the legendary Jerry (The Killer) Lee Lewis on YouTube:

- Martin Henderson

-- Image from www.southfloridatransportation.com