Our featured game is from the CIF Central Coast Section and the wild-and-wacky West Catholic Athletic League for a very important matchup. From there we head to the North Coast Section and the East Bay Athletic League – Mountain Division with our last stop in the Delta League of the Sac-Joaquin Section. The twist to this is each of the three games involves a head coach that played for and is a disciple of legendary De La Salle coach and movie man Bob Ladouceur, and all three are favored.
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Serra-San Mateo (4-2) at Valley Christian-San Jose (4-2), Friday, 7:00 pm
We go to the wild-and-wacky West Catholic Athletic League for not only our Central Coast Section featured game but in our opinion the top game in Northern California this week.
Serra is 3-0 in the WCAL after hammering Archbishop Riordan-San Francisco 57-6 in a game that was 57-0 at halftime, and a win over Valley Christian is a must if Coach Patrick Walsh and his boys are going to win a second consecutive outright league title with Sacred Heart Cathedral and St. Ignatius of San Francisco remaining before closing out WCAL play at home against St. Francis.
Valley Christian is 2-1 in league after a baseball-like score in a 7-3 loss to P2P CCS No. 2 and NorCal No. 5 St. Francis last week. At this point the only shot Valley Christian has at a share of the league title would be to beat Serra and things likely would end up like two years ago when all three of the teams finished 6-1 in WCAL play.
While both teams are 4-2 P2P CCS No. 1 and NorCal No. 8 Serra has played a bit of a tougher schedule having played and lost to Serra-Gardena and P2P NCS No. 2 and NorCal No. 7 Pittsburg in a 45-35 road loss, and that has given them a higher competitive equity ranking.
The good news for P2P CCS No. 4 and NorCal No. 25T Valley Christian is they only gave up 17 points in their two losses, 10-6 to CCS No. 3 and NorCal No. 20 Wilcox, and one TD last week. The bad news is they only scored nine points in the two games combined.
Whether or not the 7-3 loss by Valley Christian to St. Francis factors into the equation do to common opponents, remains to be seen. St. Francis has a 23-12 victory at the Honor Bowl over a Notre Dame-Sherman Oaks team that just pinned a 38-7 loss on a Serra-Gardena team that defeated the Padres, 41-22 at the Honor Bowl.
Part of the closeness of the Warriors loss last week to St. Francis could be attributed to the Lancers still breaking in a back-up quarterback, but maybe the defense of Coach Mike Machado is really that good.
For Serra it starts with quarterback Luke Bottari. So far this season Bottari has passed for 1,113 yards and 12 touchdowns but he does have six interceptions. The Padres running game has been by committee with four players who have gained at least 100 yards on the ground and combined for 15 of the 16 Padres’ TDs rushing.
Serra has won seven of its past eight games against Valley, including two wins last season, 35-7 in WCAL play and 31-14 in the playoffs, both at Serra.
Valley Christian will have the home field and that could be a factor, but it’s likely going to come down to the Warriors defense keeping the Padres offense off the field, but even so the winner likely will still need to score at least three TDs to win the game.
Walsh, who was the first player and protégé of legendary former De La Salle coach and movie man Bob Ladouceur, to land a head coaching job, will have his boys ready for sure, but so will wily veteran Warriors head honcho Machado.
California-San Ramon (5-2) at San Ramon Valley-Danville (5-2), Friday, 7:00 pm
With the top teams in the Bay Valley Athletic League on a bye week, and since we had Monte Vista in last week’s featured game, we had to choose between this important EBAL – Mountain Division match-up and the EBAL – Mountain versus EBAL – Valley contest between Monte Vista and Granada-Livermore as the game of the week in the North Coast Section.
The decision was to choose the Wolves hosting the Grizzlies because it’s a very important game with respect to the potential seedings for the NCS Division I playoffs.
California rebounded from its loss to Monte Vista that was preceded by a win over Granada with a grind it out 14-3 win at Foothill-Pleasanton that was scoreless at halftime.
At this point of the season it’s time for California to get some consistency if they are going to be one of the top seeds. Besides the loss to Monte Vista, they also have a loss to Antioch, but they have a win over a Freedom-Oakley team that beat Antioch. At 1-1 in the EBAL – Mountain if they fall to 1-2 the best they almost assuredly can do is 1-3 with Dublin from the EBAL – Valley and De La Salle remaining on the schedule, and that won’t be good enough for second or maybe even third place.
Remember, the EBAL teams play teams from both divisions but only games within their own division count in the league standings.
San Ramon Valley is coming off a 44-21 road victory over cross-town Dougherty Valley of the Valley Division, and is 1-0 in Mountain play after opening with a 24-10 win at Foothill two weeks ago. They have De La Salle and Monte Vista remaining meaning a win over California would guarantee at least a 2-2 finish in league, so a lot is riding on this game for NorCal Regional Games of the Week highlights Serra at Valley Christian
Jesuit-Carmichael (5-2) hosting Davis (4-3), Saturday, 1:00 pm
This was a take your pick week in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section with the Marauders hosting the Blue Devils the one we settled on after considering Del Oro-Loomis at Grant-Sacramento, a Central California Athletic League battle between Modesto rivals Gregori hosting Downey, and last but not least we could have gone to the Foothill Valley League where Lincoln looks to remain unbeaten in league in a matchup with Rio Linda.
Going to the Sierra Foothill League again was out and the other two matchups don’t have the playoff implications the Delta League contest offers.
After losing their first two games and with their top player and 4-star cornerback recruit Isaiah Rutherford playing banged up the Marauders fell down in the pecking order of the Sacramento Bee, particularly with the other loss besides Folsom to a Granite Bay team that is down this year.
We have kept them in the rankings, albeit only at No. 25T, for two reasons. First, Rutherford, a 6-2, 170-pound senior who has around 20 major D1 offers including Alabama and several other top-notch programs plus most Pac-12 schools, was hurt early in the Folsom game and didn’t play in the Granite Bay loss. Since then he has been used sparingly in four easy wins but still has a team high seven rushing touchdowns on only 37 carries for 258 yards.
The other reason is Jesuit still appears to be the class of the Delta League and if Rutherford gets totally healthy and Coach Marlon Blanton, who by the way played for and is a disciple of De La Salle legend Bob Ladouceur, can get his boys to a second straight 7-0 league record and title, the Marauders might make some noise in the playoffs.
The Jesuit running back that has picked up the slack has been senior Cade Cunningham (482 yards rushing, six TDs), and the passing game of senior quarterback Hank Harvego (918 yards passing, nine TDs) has been adequate after a tough start in the two losses.
Davis has played everyone tough and against teams they were expected to beat they have put up some big numbers. Last week in a 35-26 victory at Pleasant Grove-Elk Grove four different players threw 14 passes and completed seven for two TDs including trickery in some plays, and junior running backs Payne Barksdale and Ben Busano, who each threw and option pass, combined for 281 yards rushing with Busano running for three touchdowns.
Whatever combination of plays Davis Coach Steve Smyte used against Pleasant Grove worked, but if it’s successful against Jesuit the visitors from Yolo County will have upset the Delta League apple cart big time.
On a final note, there will be an air of excitement at Jesuit on Saturday as Rutherford, the top rated recruit in the Sacramento Metro area, has indicated earlier this week on Twitter he will announce his college choice after the game.
One person who has been watching Ruherford over his four-year career is Sacramento Bee veteran sports scribe Joe Davidson.
"Yes, he's been banged up with an ankle injury the first two game but has come on strong," Davidson said in a direct message on Twitter. "Rutherford is a big-time difference maker. He's a national recruit cornerback but also one of the top breakaway runners in the state."
