It was a weekend of firsts, blowouts, comebacks, and more across the North Coast Section, as the playoffs got underway.
Let’s go on our whirlwind tour around the section.
- Santa Rosa won it’s first-ever playoff game, beating DAL-Foothill champion Northgate, 48-25. The Panthers got a huge night from dual-sport standout Kalei Aukai, who had eight catches for over 200 yards and four touchdowns. Now, they will face NBL rival Windsor, who did not play in the first round. Windsor won the mid-October game between the teams, 50-26.
- With under a minute to go in the first half on Saturday night, Heritage trailed San Leandro 32-0 in a Division 1 quarterfinal game, and had been thoroughly dominated to that point. But the first of five Nick Zell touchdown passes, this one to Tyrese Mack, got the Patriots on the board before the half, and they rallied for an improbable last-minute 35-32 victory.
The comeback sent San Leandro to its 10th straight playoff loss, beginning with a loss to De La Salle in the 2005 championship game, and sent Heritage to the section semifinals for the first time in school history, where they face top-seed Monte Vista.
- Speaking of Monte Vista, quarterback Jake Haener threw his 86th career touchdown pass, tying Brett Nottingham for tops all-time on the Mustangs list. MV also easily dispatched Irvington, 52-0, for its first playoff win since beating San Leandro in 2012. Of note is the fact that both signal-callers were also Pac-12 recruits. Haener has committed to Washington, while Nottingham originally went to Stanford, where he backed up Andrew Luck before finishing his career at Columbia.
- Fresh off its best regular season in 17 years, Livermore added its first playoff win since 1999, defeating Mt. Eden in the first round of the Division 2 playoffs. Cross-town rival Granada also advanced to the Division 2 quarterfinals, routing College Park, 42-6.
- The fortune of the two Kennedy schools took dramatically different turns on Saturday night. Kennedy-Richmond continued its storybook season, blanking El Molino 38-0 to record the Eagles’ 10th victory of the season, but Kennedy-Fremont saw an unbeaten regular season spoiled in the first round of the playoffs for the second time in three years, losing 48-35 to visiting Eureka.
- Both Eureka schools were on the road this weekend, and both had enjoyable trips back home. St. Bernard’s played its first game in the Division 4 bracket, and the defending Division 5 champions wasted no time dispatching Healdsburg, scoring 64 first-points in a 76-24 victory.
Isaac Drake set the tone in that game, returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown, and Jack Rice accounted for five first-half scores before giving way to junior TJ Campbell. After the game, Rice received a scholarship offer from the Air Force Academy.
- Eureka’s win over Kennedy represented the largest first-round upset, in terms of seeding, in the first round. The Loggers came in as an 11 seed, and will now face Rancho Cotate, who fended off upset-minded 14-seed Saint Mary’s, 35-28. Rancho Cotate receiver Logan Reese had a huge game in the win, recording seven catches for 151 yards and two scores.
Other lower seeds to win included 10-seed Santa Rosa, nine-seed Redwood (56-14 over Casa Grande), and nine-seed San Marin (28-24 over Hercules). All other games went according to seeding.
- There will be a WACC cross-over game in the Division 3 quarterfinals, after Encinal and Bishop O’Dowd easily rolled to first-round wins. Encinal, who won the Shoreline Division after getting bumped down from the Foothill Division this season, routed Petaluma 47-6, while Foothill champion O’Dowd cruised past Terra Linda, 56-14.
- There were 25 first-round games played this weekend (we don’t count the Division 1 games since those were technically quarterfinal games pushed up one week). Just five of those games were decided by single-digits, in an annual first-round blowout trend. Meanwhile, the winning team scored 50 or more points in nine of those games.
It was, however, a more competitive weekend than last year, when 27 of the 29 games were decided by double-digits.
