Last week we started a Northern California Games of the Week feature to coincide with similar features on the CIF Central Coast, North Coast and Sac-Joaquin Section top games. This week we’re going to split off the top game as a NorCal Featured Game of the Week that will be followed by a Northern California Games of the Week Best of the Rest. As was stated last week its likely a West Catholic Athletic League game could grace either the top game or the other top games on a weekly basis and that’s exactly the case this week as the WCAL takes center stage.
St. Francis (4-0) at Bellarmine (3-1), Friday, 7 pm at San Jose City College
Is there a dominant team in the West Catholic Athletic League this season? If there is, and that’s still questionable, the early favorite for anointment will take place this Friday night in San Jose in what should be one heck of a game between the visiting Lancers and host Bells.
The Maxpreps power rankings don’t have either St. Francis or Bellarmine in its Top 25 but Cal-Hi Sports has St. Francis as its top CCS team at No.12 with Bellarmine its second CCS team at No. 16.
St. Francis is No. 1 in the Prep2Prep CIF Central Coast Section rankings and Bellarmine dropped down to No. 4 after a 16-14 loss to P2P CIFSJS top-ranked Del Oro, so it could be argued that based on that game and the rest of their resume they could deserve to be higher. The bottom line is if they beat the Lancers they will likely be on top of the P2P rankings and will certainly be the top CCS team in the Cal-Hi Sports rankings.
Some factors would seem to be in the Bells favor. Both teams like to run the ball and control the clock and Bellarmine will do it behind what should be a large home crowd. The Bells have also beaten the Lancers 11 straight times.
Last week in a 37-3 rout of St. Ignatius the Bells broke one long play after another. Brendan Manigo scored on runs of 67 and 51 yards and Austin Ajiake took one to the house from 70 yards out.
The Bell non-league schedule has not been the toughest with a 34-20 win over Menlo-Atherton and a 32-21 victory over a so-so Clovis North-Fresno, but 11 in a row can sometimes embolden kids and Coach Mike Janda has that to use on his side.
For St. Francis Coach Greg Calcagno the opposite is true in motivating his players. Plus, Lancers fans that will make the trek to San Jose have to be feeling like all terrible things must come to an end. The Lancers are unblemished but they haven’t played anyone like Del Oro and an 8-7 win at a Palma-Salinas team that was coming off a season-opening 52-31 loss to CIFNS small school power Sutter, looks suspect.
For St. Francis to win this game they will not to sustain drives with both running and passing, and their defense will have to be able to stop the run. Running back Cyrus Habibi-Likio has not been used a lot except against Palma, and he will need to be an impact player in this game. Junior quarterback Reed Vettel may be called upon especially if the Bells jam the box trying to stop the run.
Regardless of who wins the game the bell will be tolling for one of the teams at the end of this wild-and-wacky WCAL contest.
