Players from De La Salle celebrate after a huge defensive play during their big win over Corona Centennial played last Saturday at Cal. Photo: Ethan Kassel,.
Sorry for the delay in getting out our reactions and our own story about Saturday’s win at Cal by De La Salle against SoCal superpower Corona Centennial. It shows that for now the Spartans are once again the front-runner for the CIF NorCal Open Division berth for the CIF Open Division state final. They still have some teams to get past in their own CIF North Coast Section and Centennial still looks like one of the best from the south, especially if the Huskies get back to full strength for the CIF Southern Section D1 playoffs.
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By Ethan Kassel of Bay PrepsInsider.com
For Cal-Hi Sports
Maybe, just maybe, the CIF Open Division won’t be a foregone conclusion this year.
De La Salle of Concord, ranked No. 6 in the state coming in, gave Northern California football fans and fans everywhere hungry for a competitive game in the state’s top division reason to believe with a stunning 35-32 win over the Centennial Huskies at Memorial Stadium in Berkeley on Saturday afternoon. Centennial was No. 4 in the most recent Cal-Hi Sports State TOP 50.
“It was a chance to prove that we’re one of the top teams in California, and we capitalized on that moment,” said Duece Jones-Drew, the UCLA commit who ran 27 times for 212 yards and three touchdowns on the same field where his father, Maurice Jones-Drew, torched Long Beach Poly in 2002.
It was a game full of contributions from the Spartans’ biggest talents. Landon Miller, one of the top juniors in Northern California mostly known as a linebacker, made a cameo under center and threw a 65-yard touchdown to Damari Dean. San Jose State commit Zion Cadet had the game-winning stop, sniffing out a QB bootleg to stop quarterback Jaden Jefferson on fourth-and-2 with 1:15 left.
The fourth-down stop harkened back to De La Salle’s last victory over Centennial, the 2015 CIF Open Division Championship Game that marked the last time a NorCal representative won the state’s top division. The Southern champion has cemented itself as the state’s top team in each of the nine games since by an average of 29.1 points. And De La Salle has been on the short end of most of those contests, including last season’s 47-13 win by current state No. 1 Santa Margarita.
There’s no telling for sure that De La Salle (5-0) will be able to hang with whichever team represents the South on Dec. 12 at Saddleback College. First off, the Spartans have to get there, and Pittsburg has already proven itself to be a worthy challenger with close losses in the last two NCS Open finals and only lost recently 26-14 to state No. 2 St. John Bosco. San Ramon Valley (5-0 after an easy win last Friday vs Foothill of Pleasanton), which will visit Owen Owens Field in Concord on Oct. 23, won’t be a pushover either. Folsom has had to survive two overtime games, but has a win over SoCal’s Mission Viejo also waits in the wings as another possible NorCal representative should the Spartans slip up. It also would be foolish for anyone in the NCS or Sac-Joaquin Section not to consider offensive powerhouse Central East of Fresno (4-0), last year’s CIF D1-A state champion.
And then there’s the matter of the Southern champion, whether it be Centennial, one of the Trinity League’s giants like Santa Margarita, Bosco and Mater Dei or Sierra Canyon, who will have made it there by navigating a brutal Southern Section bracket. Whoever the Spartans would face in that game will also have the advantage of sleeping at home the night before the game, rather than taking a bus ride that turned into an 11-hour ordeal like Centennial (2-3) endured on the way to Berkeley.
But the Huskies are undoubtedly good enough to be there. Centennial’s record is the most misleading of any top team in the country, with the Huskies’ three losses coming by a combined five points. The prior two were one-point defeats to Mater Dei and Santa Margarita. They entered Saturday without top defensive back Jaden Walk-Green as well as two offensive linemen.
Walk-Green, a Washington commit, might have been most missed in Saturday’s game on special teams. Just like in their Sept. 11 loss to Santa Margarita and in a loss to Mater Dei, the Huskies were left to regret a missed extra point, this one coming in the opening minute of the game after Jefferson hit Jaden Bynum for a 70-yard touchdown on the second play. De La Salle’s Jameson Mitzel stopped a Jefferson two-point attempt early in the second to keep the Spartans up 14-12 and Quentin Hale, Centennial’s USC-bound wide receiver, couldn’t haul in a two-point pass under tight coverage from Kingston Jennings later in the game.
The Huskies also tried a 43-yard field goal on the final play of the first half that missed wide right, sending them into the locker room staring at a 28-25 deficit.
“It’s an area of opportunity for us,” longtime Centennial head coach Matt Logan said. “We’ve got to get better there and in all three phases.”
Logan, one of the winningest coaches in state history with 308 wins since 1997 and a whopping 10 CIFSS titles, had perhaps the top moment of his career in 2008 when Centennial beat De La Salle to win its only CIF state title, which came that year in D1. Since then, however, the Spartans have been a thorn in the Huskies’ side. DLS topped them in the 2012 Open Division final, which also was the final game in legendary former head coach Bob Ladouceur’s career. Alumbaugh took over the following season and after losing to St. John Bosco in the 2013 CIF Open final his DLS teams in 2014 and 2015 topped Centennial twice to win state crowns.
De La Salle’s Zion Cadet (far right) is about to make game-clinching tackle of Centennial’s Jaden Jefferson during team’s 35-32 win last Saturday at Cal’s Memorial Stadium. Photo: Ethan Kassel.
The shootout of a first half transformed into a second half played much more on De La Salle’s terms. When Centennial looked to have the Spartans stopped with a three-and-out on the opening series of the second quarter, punter Johnny Borba threw a pop pass to Dean for a 49-yard pickup that led to a 7-yard Judah Pape rushing touchdown. De La Salle never scored again, but held the ball for the next 8:53 and converted a pair of fourth downs on Jaxon Loftin QB sneaks before eventually punting.
“We were able to slow the emotions down a little bit and slow our brains down a little bit,” head coach Justin Alumbaugh said. “A faster game suits them better than it suits us. That type of methodical game fits us.”
Mitzel’s delayed blitz forced a rainbow of a pass that sophomore Savion Henry intercepted with 9:01 left, and De La Salle was in position to go back up two scores after Jones-Drew’s 33-yard run. But Chris Anderson pounced on a fumbled handoff at the Centennial 4. Mitzel and sophomore Bubba Asiasi, younger brother of De La Salle great Devin Asiasi, stopped Malaki Davis on fourth-and-2 with 2:51 on the clock. The Huskies had one last chance after an illegal block led to a Spartan turnover on downs with 1:36 to go, but Cadet, who had been quiet up until that point, got a perfect read on a Jefferson bootleg to seal one of De La Salle’s biggest wins in a decade.
Bynum’s 70-yard touchdown 28 seconds in had onlookers thinking the Spartans once again wouldn’t have the juice to keep up with one of the South’s best, but Jones-Drew countered with his first score on a 59-yard run less than four minutes later. Chase Young picked off Jefferson to set up Jones-Drew’s 3-yard run that made it 14-6 with 5:07 left in the opening quarter.
Jefferson, who finished the day 22-of-35 through the air for 324 yards, also ran nine times for 69 and showed off his elite athleticism by breaking a tackle for a 37-yard touchdown to cut it to 14-12 after the teams traded punts. Miller’s pass to Dean on the very next play opened up a two-score Spartan advantage before the Huskies fired back with a tidy seven-play drive, capped off by Jefferson’s 30-yard touchdown to wide-open sophomore Mason Fowler.
Kye Duval’s third tackle for loss led to a Spartan punt and another quick Husky touchdown, this one on a 4-yard Braylin Drake run, but Jones-Drew returned the ensuing kickoff 45 yards, then ran for his third touchdown of the half, a 25-yarder with 1:12 on the clock.
Centennial went 56 yards on 10 plays, nine of them short Jefferson passes, to set up a field goal before halftime but missed on a day where special teams haunted the visitors.
Maybe the special teams gaffes proved that De La Salle needs everything to go right to beat a team oozing with talent. Even against a strong Spartan defense, Bynum caught six passes for 109 yards, Gavin Lorge hauled in seven for 92 and Hale caught seven for 87 despite a couple of ill-timed drops. Centennial was far from perfect.
But the SoCal representative in the state championship game has often come out sloppy after a week off and still gone on to bludgeon De La Salle or San Mateo Serra. Regardless of circumstances, the Spartans proved that they, and the rest of Northern California’s elite, do have what it takes to compete with the best.
Thanks again to Ethan Kassel for this report.
Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports
One Comment
Just a note…my understanding is that Folsom is dealing with injuries to 10 key players and Rob Larson is still out. They aren’t at full strength so i think these two OT games are not a true reflection