EAST PROVIDENCE -- Some people say football is a game that can test a young man's character more than any other athletic endeavor.

If that's the case, a group of teenagers from East Providence passed a major character exam yesterday.

Football threw everything it had at the East Providence High team -- an undefeated opponent, a substantial size deficit and weather that definitely was not conducive to an offense that depended on quickness and speed.

Yet somehow, East Providence emerged with the 12-8 victory over La Salle that never will be considered a thing of beauty, but will be one of the most memorable triumphs for the Townies in the 78-year history of the Thanksgiving Day rivalry.

If you are an East Providence fan, how will you not remember the day a team that lost its first league game of the season and needed a last-second field goal to win its second game earned a co-championship with a victory over a previously undefeated La Salle team?

How do you ever forget the day an East Providence team that was outweighed by nearly 100 pounds per man in the matchup of its defensive line against the opposition's offensive line, virtually shut down a La Salle offense that had scored 33 points per game?

The fact that a better part of the game took place in a wind-driven rain, makes it all the more memorable.

Maybe all you need to understand how East Providence beat the odds, as well as Mother Nature, is look at David Fish.

For if anybody on the field yesterday symbolized the character of the East Providence victory, it was Fish.

He's a 5-foot-9, 170-pound senior defensive lineman. Yesterday he was going head-to-head against a La Salle offensive line that averaged 280 pounds per player.

Until yesterday, nobody -- other than his teammates and a few friends and family members -- even knew Fish played football. Maybe that's because before this season, he didn't actually play too much for the Townies.

He was a kid who loved to play, but always was just a little too small for one position or a little too slow for another.

"He's a kid who plays with passion and spirit, but we could never find a home for him," said East Providence coach Sandy Gorham. "We tried him at running back, on the offensive line, at linebacker and at safety."

Finally this season, Fish told Gorham, "just put me on the (defensive) line and I will do what you want me to do."

Yesterday, the coaching staff told Fish he needed to get into the La Salle backfield and cause some "disruption." At his size, he obviously wasn't going to push his way past the La Salle offensive linemen, so he needed to find ways to slip between or around them.

That's exactly what he did. He spent a better part of the game in the La Salle backfield. A few times, he individually tackled La Salle runners for losses, but most of the time he delayed them enough to give his teammates time to join in on a tackle.

The dirt and mud that obliterated the number on the front of his jersey by the end of the game made you think that he literally crawled on his stomach into the backfield.

"He played an incredible game," Gorham said about Fish. "I told him he had the game of his career."

Of course, victories like yesterday's come with a host of heroes.

At the other end of defensive line from Fish was Jesse Blakely. During the winter, he wrestles in the 155-pound weight class. Like Fish, he didn't let a huge weight deficit stop him making a host of tackles.

Then, in the fourth quarter, he recovered a blocked punt in the La Salle end zone for what proved to be East Providence's margin of victory.

How often does a defensive tackle score the game-winning touchdown in a showdown game?

There was Cameron Ford, the lineman who blocked the punt that led to Blakely's touchdown, and Brian Bland and Mike Payne, the other two members of the Townies' five-man defensive front.

As the offensive center, Jake Crowell was under pressure all day snapping a wet, slippery ball in the Townies' shotgun offense.

And there was Nathan Lovett, the junior quarterback who handled the pressure of catching the slippy ball on each snap and also threw a touchdown pass.

It was game filled with tests and a group of teenagers from East Providence had the answers.

jgillool@projo.com / (401) 277-7340