De La Salle beats San Ramon Valley in slugfest to capture North Coast Section football championship
DUBLIN, CALIFORNIA — The De La Salle passing offense had been roundly criticized all year, and that criticism only grew louder as the Spartans were picked off twice by the San Ramon Valley Wolves in Friday night’s North Coast Section Open Division Championship game.
But quarterback Toa Faavae ran for two touchdowns on bootlegs, including the go-ahead 15-yard score with 9:42 left in the game, and the Spartans emerged with a 17-7 victory and their 31st NCS championship in a row.
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They haven't lost a game to a NCS team since 1991, a span of 271 games (270-0-1). They've also won 10 straight games since opening the season 0-2.
“We tried to go real simple and ultimately rely on our physicality and get downhill,” head coach Justin Alumbaugh said. “If you commit so many people (to the box), we have a quarterback that’s one of the fastest guys on the field. Toa wants to run it every time. I tell him it’s like fishing. You have to stay calm.”
After an 0-2 start, the Spartans won their 10th straight game this season and 31st consecutive NCS crown.
Photo: Ethan Kassel
Faavae ran for a 14-yard score with 1:24 left to seal the games and top-seeded De La Salle (10-2) only allowed one play in excess of 15 yards all night to quiet a lethal SRV offense that entered the night averaging 38.6 points per game.
“We really focused on closing that middle gap,” said linebacker Chris Biller.
De La Salle was without three-star linebacker Matthew Johnson, who tested his ankle injury during warmups before being ruled out, but Biller and Nemyah Telona compensated.
Telona, a sophomore who missed the Spartans’ Oct. 13 win over the Wolves with a concussion, had a pair of sacks and forced an incompletion on another quarterback hurry.
“When I heard Johnson wasn’t gonna play, I knew everything was on me,” he said.
Facing fourth-and-2 at the De La Salle 46 with 8:32 left, Wolves quarterback Luke Baker slipped out of a Kai Moananu-Apela sack, but Jacob Dartez and sophomore Jayden Nicholas combined to force an incompletion and turnover on downs.
From there, the Spartans burned nearly seven minutes off the clock, converting a pair of fourth downs before Faavae’s touchdown run to put the game out of reach.
“Toa’s a hell of a player,” said running back Derrick Blanche, who carried 21 times for 90 yards. “I told him to keep his head up and not let his mistake define the rest of his game.”
San Ramon Valley (10-2) took a 7-3 lead into halftime after Baker’s 32-yard touchdown pass to Evan Economos with 24 seconds left in the second quarter.
“Defensively, that was our one breakdown, and they made us pay,” Alumbaugh said. “Outside of that, I thought we played really good defense.”
The Wolves had a chance to take a two-score lead after Marco Jones’ interception early in the third quarter, but gained just three yards on the following three plays before missing a 37-yard field goal wide right.
In two meetings with the Spartans this year, SRV missed three field goals, including a 35-yarder in the final seconds of regulation in the teams’ prior meeting.
More celebration for the Spartans
Photo: Ethan Kassel
“They just sucked the life out of us at times with their defense,” said Wolves head coach Aaron Becker, whose team will face No. 3 Pittsburg (12-0) next week in the NCS Division I Championship Game. Pittsburg breezed past California, 35-14.
While SRV won the turnover battle 2-1, De La Salle was the only one to turn an interception into any points. Drew Cunningham picked off a bullet pass that ricocheted off a Wolves receiver’s helmet on the opening play of the second quarter and Faavae followed by running for 14 yards after a holding flag left the Spartans staring at a second-and-17.
Faavae also converted a fourth-and-2 on a sneak before a false start on second-and-goal from the 4, a penalty that forced De La Salle to settle for a 21-yard Finn Sepic field goal after holding the ball for more than seven minutes.
Faavae’s first pass of the night was intercepted by Dylan Deitsch, but led to no points after Wyatt Ferguson’s sack forced the Wolves to punt.
In all, the Spartans ran the ball 46 times while throwing just eight passes, and one of the passes that they did attempt was thrown by backup quarterback Brayden Knight.
Of those 46 runs, one of the most important was a handoff to Blanche on the first play after the turnover on downs. Jones shot into the backfield in what looked like a copy of Jadeveon Clowney’s iconic hit from his days at South Carolina, and while he did tackle Blanche for a 5-yard loss, Blanche managed to hold onto the ball.
“We’re taught the number one most important thing when carrying the ball is ball security,” Blanche said. “Ball security, ball security, ball security. He got a hit on me, and I just bounced right back up.”
Dominic Kelley accompanied Blanche in the backfield, running 11 times for 67 yards while Faavae ran 10 times for 130.
Baker threw just 18 times, completing 11 passes for 94 yards. With top receiver Owen Scott sidelined after suffering an injury in last week’s overtime win over Campolindo, Economos served as Baker’s top target, catching five passes for 60 yards.
The last time the teams met about a month ago — a 33-27 De La Salle overtime win — the Wolves piled up 386 yards, all but two of it suppled by Baker, who rushed 21 times for 181 yards, most of them on scrambles. The Spartans held him to 14 yards on seven rushes — including sacks — on Friday.
It's a big reason they have a week off before playing in the CIF Northern California regional against an un-named opponent, likely the winner of the top division in the Sac-Joaquin or Central sections.
Ethan Kassel is one of Northern California's most respected, prolific and insightful prep sports journalists. His latest episodes of Bay Preps Insider can be heard on Apple Podcasts. Read his writings on Substack and follow him on Twitter/X @KasselMedia
