UNIONVILLE— The fans stormed the field at Piedmont High School Monday night.

No, the Panthers’ football team didn’t win the South Piedmont Conference championship.

They simply won.

A 20-16 victory over Sun Valley brought the faithful out to pound on their heroes, whose sudden fame has electrified a community which has known only losing.

You must understand something else about that Monday night victory. It was Piedmont’s second win in a row.

Let that sink in for a moment. Piedmont is on a two-game winning streak.

That’s Piedmont, loser of 29 straight games until a 27-9 thrashing of East Rowan on Sept. 15.

Then, Monday night, in the rain and mud, the Panthers, along with their giddy fans, celebrated new heights.

“It was the best feeling in the world,” said senior lineman Jason Baucom, who has played in his share of 70-0 losses over the previous two seasons. “They were going to tear down the goal posts but the cops wouldn’t let ‘em.”

Tearing down goal posts? Two-game winning streaks?

What’s happened at Piedmont?

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Two words sum up all of the hoopla in Unionville:Rusty Jester.

The Charlotte Independence graduate had coached at his alma mater for 17 years. Then, he got a call from Piedmont principal Archie Price.

“They wanted my opinion on how to get it fixed,” he said of the futile program.

Piedmont was in the midst of its classic losing streak and had gone through three coaches in the past six years.

“In the process of talking to them and the fact that my wife and I wanted to move to this area, it just evolved,” said Jester.

Price was tired of losing and told Jester this revamping would be first class. And instead of hiring another Piedmont assistant, he went out and got Jester, who at 49, had over 130 career wins.

“All principals need to go by the rule, ‘If the program’s good, hire from within. If the program’s bad, hire from without,’” Jester said. “Football has not been a priority here. ”

With his hiring, it was.

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Jester actually coached at Piedmont from 1978 through 1983 and he still knew many of the residents. He knew the community’s ability to raise money.

He said yes to Price last December and began putting the plan in place, a plan that was very involved:

Coaches: “We wanted a first class coaching staff,” Jester said.

He brought three in from Independence, including Rod Ledbetter, who coached, among others, Catawba’s Radell Lockhart and Derrick Montgomery. Retired Dick Gresham, a former North Stanly coach and marine, came back. They were winners and they expected to win.

The weight room: A total of $20,000 was raised and spent on improvements.

The practice field: Thanks to $10,000, what used to be a rock gravel piece of land is now a lush, bermuda grass facility, “comparable to most people’s playing field,” said Jester.

The game field: “You will not see a nicer game field than that one,” Jester said. “I haven’t seen Kannapolis’ but I haven’t seen one nicer yet.”

New uniforms: “The first thing I got was, ‘Coach, we just bought new uniforms.’ Isaid, ‘You don’t understand. We’re getting new uniforms. And I want their names on the back.’”

The locker room: Coaches built new lockers, priced at $3-400 apiece, spending most of their summer on the project.

Visual effects: With Jester’s arrival, t-shirts began springing up. Sayings and mottos were painted on the wall. In Jester’s office, there are photos of San Francisco 49er coach Steve Mariucci, who writes best wishes to Piedmont. And D’Angelo Lloyd, a pro football player and former Independence guy. And there’s a shot of Andy Tomberlin, a 15-year professional baseball player and perhaps the most well-known Piedmont athlete ever.

“We tried anything visual we could get our hands on so they could get some pride in themselves,” said Jester.

“The community just swarmed us with volunteers,” he added. “It has just been overwhelming the number of people who have been touched and want to get this program back on its feet.

“We wanted everyone to know that this wasn’t just a new coaching staff. It was a new program.”

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But there was still the job of getting the players to buy into all of this.

“One of the biggest bridges we had to cross wasn’t just getting their respect but getting their trust,” he said. “We wanted them to know we were OK – that we were here to help them, not take advantage of them.”

Baucom certainly bought into it, especially after what he had been through. The memories still haunt him.

“It was terrible,” he said of his sophomore and junior seasons. “You’d feel like crap. It wasn’t fun. You’d practice all week and then go out there on Friday and watch guys run by you. You felt like dummies.

“You win with a team and we didn’t have a team.”

Baucom knew immediately things had changed.

“Coach Jester told me to squeeze down on a block and keep outside leverage. I didn’t understand. I hadn’t been coached real good.

“But he’s the best coach I’ve ever had. He’s awesome. And the intensity and confidence level is so much higher.”

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Believing was all well and good, but the fact remained: Could Piedmont, who had scored 18 points in 10 games last season, win a ballgame?

In the opener against West Stanly, Piedmont scored a first-quarter touchdown and the Panthers went absolutely nuts on the sidelines.

“They were going ape,” Jester chuckled. “Iturned around and said, ‘Gosh, guys, act like you’ve scored before.’”

Piedmont lost 20-14.

“We didn’t know how to win,” Jester said. “We didn’t know how to react to good and bad.”

Against Parkwood, it was another loss, 17-13, another game Jester thought could have been won.

And then, the Panthers had to play Concord. With 1:35 left, Jester pulled a fake field goal (Piedmont pulling a fake field goal?) and scored. The touchdown would have beaten the perennial, powerful Spiders.

But a yellow flag went up as the pass was being thrown and Jester knew exactly what it was for.

“We had three men open on that play — a receiver, a tackle and a guard,” he said.

“We were outmanned physically, athletically, size-wise, everywhere,” Jester said. “But for three quarters ,we didn’t bat an eye.”

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Jester knows when the program came of age. It was in the first half of the East Rowan game when a Mustang intercepted a pass deep in Piedmont territory.

“We held them out and that was a big turning point for the kids mentally,” he said.

Amazingly, when the win was secure and the losing streak was over, there was a controlled confidence.

“They handled it very humbly,” said Jester.

With a laugh, he added, “They handled the victory much better than that first touchdown against West Stanly.”

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Then, came Win No. 2 Monday with the postgame celebration.

The fans, who had helped Jester build lockers, talk kids into coming out for the team and worshipped the ground Jester walk on, have filled those blue bleachers to capacity.

“We’ve had the three biggest gates in school history,” Jester said.

“Listen, you have to realize what this school, program and community has been going through,” he continued. “They’re happy.”

One fan called Jester the other day to tell him he had almost gotten in a fistfight in Charlotte. Someone noticed his Piedmont football cap, made a joke and well, you don’t make jokes about Piedmont football anymore.

The atmosphere at school has been incredible as well.

“Principals across the state know what football means and financially, what it does,” Jester said. “But I don’t know if they realize what it does for the student body atmosphere and the feeling of pride they have in themselves.”

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No one in their right mind is giving Piedmont a chance at increasing the win streak to three. Tonight, they take on the mighty Wonders of Kannapolis. The No. 2-ranked team in the state.

“We’ll be outquicked, out-athleted and outmanned,” shrugged Jester, “but we’ll play hard. “

Baucom is overcome with joy. His football career has been salvaged.

“We think we’re the best team in the conference,” he said with a straight face. “That’s the way we’ve gotta think.”

How about Kannapolis?

“If we hold ‘em to 14 points, we’ll beat them,” Baucom said.

Most coaches could hear that coming out of a player’s mouth and quickly put a muzzle on him. But despite overwhelming odds, he kinda liked that cocksure attitude from a Piedmont Panther.

“I just hope we get some respect this season,” Jester said. “I’m not sure we deserve it yet but we’d at least like our opponents to respect our efforts.

“Coaching kids is the greatest occupation there is when they respond to you.”

The Panthers have responded. And no one can argue this point when they got up out of bed this morning.

Piedmont High School is on a two-game winning streak.

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Ronnie Gallagher is the sports editor of the Post.