It was more than the average Super Bowl for Louisiana native Jon Alvarado and his girlfriend, Sterling Heights senior Jess Yaxley, who went to O’Kelly’s Sports Bar and Grille, 2000 S. Mission St.Alvarado, a lifelong Saints fan, had traveled 12 hours from his Marine Corps base in Quantico, Va., to watch the game with her.

“Because of the Super Bowl, I wanted to be with her to watch it,” he said.

Yaxley said she wanted to take him somewhere local. The two met through a mutual friend in Annapolis, Md., eight months ago, while Alvarado was attending the United States Naval Academy.

Alvarado planned his leave around the Super Bowl after the Saints clinched their berth in the Super Bowl against the Colts two weeks ago. He came to the bar Sunday wearing his Drew Brees jersey, and Yaxley wore a homemade Reggie Bush shirt.

Sunday was the first Super Bowl the Saints have ever appeared in — something Alvarado has been waiting for his whole life.“I’ve waited 24 years for this game,” he said. “If you had Saints tickets, it was just a bonus reason to go to New Orleans. They’ve never had anything, and now they have the Saints.”

The New Orleans Saints almost left when their city flooded and their stadium had been turned into a shelter, a disaster seeming to provide the perfect escape route for a team in search of a better stadium and a bigger market.

Displaced and disheartened, the Saints haltingly returned to a repaired Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. And a team so awful that its fans used to wear bags on their heads was embraced by a battered but rebuilding community.

Sunday, the Saints gave New Orleans a reason to do what it does better than any other American city: celebrate. In the franchise’s first Super Bowl, the Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17, sending New Orleanians into the streets for a party.”Who Dat?” Saints fans ask about which opponent might beat their team.Now they have their answer: nobody. The Saints are the NFL’s champions, after 42 seasons of futility.

Confetti fell on the Saints here, but in New Orleans, where Mardi Gras begins in less than two weeks, Bourbon Street erupted in joy, 4?1/2 years after the city nearly was engulfed by despair when the levees broke.”Louisiana, by way of New Orleans, is back,” said Saints owner Tom Benson.Saints bring first Super Bowl title to New Orleans It was over when Saints CB Tracy Porter stepped in front of Reggie Wayne , intercepted Peyton Manning ‘s pass and returned it 74 yards for a touchdown to give New Orleans a 31-17 lead with 3:12 remaining in the game.

Brees completed 32 of 39 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns, tying the Super Bowl record for completions. He was 8-of-8 on the drive that gave the Saints a fourth-quarter lead, completing a 2-yard touchdown pass to Jeremy Shockey. And then, with luck on their side after so many years, the Saints won a replay challenge on the two-point conversion to go ahead 24-17.

Brees was the MVP of the game, but Saints coach Sean Payton made the most valuable decision. With the Saints trailing by four points and kicking off to the Colts to open the second half, Payton opted for an onside kick. The Saints call the play “ambush.” Colts players conceded that they never saw it coming.

“I wasn’t worried,” said Thomas Morstead, who executed the kick: “I was terrified.”

If the kick failed, Manning would have had a short field to start the third quarter. But the Saints are a team that travels with nuns and priests in their owner’s entourage, and after years of horrible football and terrible tragedy in New Orleans, the city’s prayers were answered at long last.

The ball bounced off the helmet of the Colts’ Hank Baskett and was recovered by the Saints.

“We were going to be aggressive,” Payton said. “When you do something like that, you just put it on the players, and they were able to execute. It turned out to be a big change of possession and ended with a score.”

By then, Brees had found the rhythm that defined the league’s best offense during the season.

On the drive that followed the onside kick, Brees threaded passes through the Colts’ defense, and a short screen pass to Pierre Thomas turned into a weaving run for a 16-yard touchdown that gave the Saints a 13-10 lead.

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