Victory amplifies joy of emotional charge onto Sam Boyd turf

Editor's note: Former UNLV wide receiver Casey Flair is writing a weekly journal as a member of the Locomotives of the United Football League for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

It was great to come home to play at Sam Boyd Stadium and get the first win ever in the United Football League.

It was my first professional game and an experience I will not soon forget. It was a little more rewarding for me to suit up and again run onto the field as the home team at Sam Boyd. That's something I thought I would never do again after my senior year at UNLV.

The emotions, anxiety and excitement that boiled inside me is something that only can be experienced as you run onto the field for a game.

The game started out slow for us as the Redwoods jumped to a 14-3 lead after we had a few early miscues. But we came back and played a solid second half. Our defense stepped up and we were able to control the ball for most of the fourth quarter.

The final score: Locos 30, Redwoods 17.

Coach (Jim) Fassel was not happy with how we started the game, but was pleased to see how we fought through adversity early in the season and pulled together as a team to win.

It was important for us to show Las Vegas we were excited to call Vegas home, and that we appreciated the fans coming out. It was nice to see the support at the stadium, especially later in the game when our defense held the Redwoods on third downs. It was a big help to have fans cheering and making it difficult for them to run their plays.

Overall, it was a good start to the season, a new league and the Las Vegas Locomotives franchise.

We traveled back to Casa Grande, Ariz., after the game and got to bed around 2:30 a.m. Friday came early, and we began the day watching game film. As good as the win felt, we saw there was a lot of improvement needed.

Offensively, we left way too many points on the field. We also had two turnovers and did not cause any. Normally that makes it hard to win. We had penalties, dropped balls, missed tackles and bad fundamentals on numerous occasions.

But that's the great thing about football -- there is always something to work on and get better at, even when you win. Coach Fassel said something I have heard many coaches say but I felt applied directly to this team and league.

''The team that is able to improve the most from Game 1 to Game 2 and then along each week to Game 6 will be the one that wins the championship," he said.

That means there is no time for us to be content with our first victory, in which we made our fair share of mistakes. So it was time to get back to work and to prepare for the Florida Tuskers, who are extremely talented and dangerous. The Tuskers are coming off a dominating win against the New York Sentinels.

Florida has a roster full of guys who can make plays and know how to win. We know we can't come out of the blocks slowly as we did last week, and we must limit our mistakes because, as Florida showed last week, it will capitalize on every miscue.

In the end, it comes down to us executing and fighting through adversity. This second game will leave only one team undefeated in the league and will widen the gap between the top and bottom tier.