With all action for Week 1 in the books, it’s time for a quick look at the weekend that was around the North Coast Section.
- What do Brandon Black, Greg Marshall, Andrew Cotter, Rob Gatrell, Amer Hawari, Keith Minor, Bryan Shaw, John Trotman, and Jeff Hardie have in common? They are all coaches who took the field either as a first-time head coach or with a new team on Friday night, and all of them came away with a victory.
- For Cotter and Gatrell, it must have been an extra-special opening weekend. The two coached together at Moreau Catholic for the past six years. Cotter saw his new team, Freedom, rally from an early 14-0 deficit to upend Turlock, while Gatrell led Moreau past St. Patrick-St. Vincent.
- One more note about Gatrell – the former Liberty HS and Fresno State standout who earned a Super Bowl ring during a stint with the New England Patriots is now 15-0 as a head high school coach. He went 14-0 in his one year at the helm of the Windsor program, winning the 2011 NCS title.
- The NCS flexed a little inter-sectional muscle on Friday night, as De La Salle, Monte Vista, Rancho Cotate, Liberty, Freedom, and Antioch all turned back strong Sac-Joaquin programs with resounding victories. De La Salle and the latter three schools listed were all considered favorites, but Monte Vista’s win over Granite Bay was a real eye-opener, as was Rancho Cotate’s win over Sacramento, a program which beat Folsom a couple years ago.
- Before Campolindo’s game against Marin Catholic on Friday, Cougars coach Kevin Macy stated that his goal was to stay healthy and compete, and hopefully see Marin Catholic again in the playoffs as a better and more experienced team, considering his team had graduated all 11 defensive starters from the previous season and had a handful of top players missing due to injury. What happened instead was a 35-21 Campo victory in which Max Schoenberger and Grant Harper emerged as the newest stars, and Macy cemented his legacy of downplaying the talent and ability of his own team.
- There weren’t many dramatic finishes, but the ones that did happen are worth remembering. Clayton Valley’s double-overtime win over Pittsburg sets an early pecking order for the NCS Open Division at the end of the year, and the Ugly Eagles needed Cade Carter’s improbable grab on fourth-and-goal in the first overtime to even stay alive, not to mention Camden Grant’s field goal at the end of regulation. Meanwhile, Bradshaw Christian had three 100-yard rushers in a 36-30 double overtime win over Salesian, Alameda had to hold off a furious and late 20-point rally by College Park to win 48-40, and Ygnacio Valley forced an incompletion on a last-second fade route to beat Fremont-Oakland, 26-20.
- By the numbers – there were 10 victories by shutout in the first week of play, while just four teams scored 50 points or more. Tennyson’s 58-0 win over Newark Memorial was the largest margin of victory, and the Lancers took their foot off the gas early in the second half.
- The top two leagues in the section – the EBAL and the BVAL – went a combined 11-5 on the opening weekend, with four of the five losses coming to elite programs. In the one game between the two leagues, San Ramon Valley routed Heritage, and other teams to win games against teams from these leagues included Del Oro, San Leandro, and Clayton Valley.
- The NBL-Oak went 4-1 in its opening weekend, with no surprise that the two most impressive victories came from Rancho Cotate and Cardinal Newman, which cruised past defending NCS Division IV and CIF champion Fortuna.
- With the big wins by Campolindo and Rancho Cotate, the meeting between those teams on September 7 will go a long way in determining seeding for the NCS Division II playoffs.
- The new Vine Valley League took its lumps on opening weekend, going a combined 1-6. It was the same story for the TCAL-Rock, the ‘A’ Division for that league. Teams in the Rock went a combined 1-4, though El Cerrito did not play.
- The DAL-Foothill went a combined 4-1, with Acalanes’ loss to Valley Division member Las Lomas serving as the only blemish.
