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Louisville's Special Olympic Flag Football Team Finishes Special Olympics Run

Kentucky’s first Special Olympic flag football team to qualify for the national championship finished this week's competition ranked in the top five. Louisville Flyers head coach Danny Lane said the team finished with three wins and three losses during the tournament and in fifth place overall. Ten teams competed this week in the national tournament.As WFPL previously reported, when the tournament began, the team was on a roll.  But that changed when fatigue set in and the competition strengthened. “It was a little heartbreaking at first, but we’re good,” Lane said.  “There are 440 teams in the nation in traditional Special Olympic flag football and we rank fifth, you can’t hang your head on that.” Earlier: Louisville Flyers Going For GoldThe Flyers second loss came at the hands of the New Jersey team that eventually won the silver medal.  They lost the game on a last-second touchdown, Lane said.Lane said the third and final loss to Arkansas, a team they had nearly beat at the beginning of the tournament, was an emotional blow to the players.“They didn’t want to stop playing, of course,” he said.The tournament was held in Princeton, N.J.  The team will be heading back to Louisville on Saturday.

Jacob Ryan is the managing editor of the Kentucky Center for Investigative reporting. He's an award-winning investigative reporter who joined LPM in 2014. Email Jacob at jryan@lpm.org.