Eight Bay Area schools from four CIF sections, four from the North Coast Section - two from the Central Coast Section and one each from the Oakland Section and San Francisco Section - will be competing for state championships this week.
Four of the CIF Northern Regional champions from the Bay Area will be heading to Orange County and Saddleback College in Mission Viejo to meet their counterparts from the Southern Region, while the other four NorCal winners will host the SoCal winners.
There were actually nine teams from the Bay Area and five from the NCS but the 7-AA Division did not have a regional playoff and instead that Bowl Game state championship was played last Saturday and Pinole Valley travelled around 35 miles west of Fresno to Mendota and came home with a 34-21 championship victory. For the first part of this two part preview we will cover the Friday games at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo in the 1-AA and 2-AA divisions.
Division 1-AA
De La Salle (10-3) vs. Lincoln-San Diego (12-1)
Friday at 8:00 p.m. at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo
The trademark line play and defense of De La Salle manifested itself the past three games and despite the team still being banged up the Spartans marched to three straight wins and seven straight victories since a loss to St. Mary’s-Stockton led to a 3-3 start of the season.
Two anchors of the lines - Derek Thompson on offense and Chase Tofaeono on defense - are not totally at full strength. However, when it came time to seal the game against Folsom last week on fourth-and-1 in the Spartans 17-14 victory, Harvard-bound Derek Thompson asked head coach Justin Alumbaugh to change the call and call his number as the lead blocker. He proceeded to open a hole for Charles Greer to get the first down and allow De La Salle to run out the clock.
Tofaeono was part of a defense that had five sacks against Folsom and limited the Bulldogs to 34 yards rushing on 22 carries and just 167 yards of total offense, with 71 of those yards coming on consecutive passes in the fourth quarter. De La Salle gave up just 96 yards of offense on the 37 other offensive plays for Folsom.
Another big part of the Spartans defense the past three games has been the play of junior defensive back Jonathon Guerrero. After De La Salle got a 39-yard field goal from Spencer Brien with 1:42 left in the half to give the Spartans a 10-7 lead, Guerrero helped take the starch out of the Folsom offense with an interception he returned 17 yards to the Folsom 3-yard line. Two plays later, Greer ran it in for a TD and De La Salle had a 17-7 lead. Guerrero also had an interception in the NCS Open Division 30-23 title-game victory over Pittsburg. On that play, he also ran it back to the 3-yard line. Plus, Guerrero had an interception in the team’s regular season finale versus Clayton Valley.
In Lincoln, the Spartans face a team that just got past Carlsbad 28-24 in the CIF San Diego Section Open Division title game, and then went into Chatsworth to face a Sierra Canyon team that pinned a 49-0 loss on Bishop Alemany, the team had dealt Lincoln its lone loss, 14-7 early in the season.
Facing that scenario it surprised many SoCal prep football fans when Lincoln came away with a surprisingly easy 37-14 victory fueled by a 27-point third quarter that turned a 10-7 halftime Hornets lead to an insurmountable 37-7 advantage entering the final quarter.
The task at hand will be to stop an explosive offense led by Georgia-bound running back Roderick Robinson. Against Sierra Canyon he rushed for 181 yards on 16 carries with four TDs, including romps of 74 and 47 yards in the Hornets' explosive third quarter. Robinson comes into the game with 2,160 yards rushing and 33 TDs on the season.
The De La Salle defense has been stout but the offense has sputtered at times during the playoffs. Both Greer and sophomore running back Derrick Blanche rushed for over 100 yards and each scored a TD, but there were squandered opportunities the Spartans will need to cash in on while stopping Robinson and company at the same time.
Alumbaugh pretty much summed it up, and the formula is never complicated when he was asked what would be keys to a victory.
“Simple things, but we need to do them well,” Alumbaugh said. “Control the line of scrimmage on both sides, run the ball effectively and hit on the play action.”
“We were able to keep the ball away from Folsom but didn’t put up the points when needed. Must be better there,” Alumbaugh continued. “Defensively, rally to the ball and prevent big plays.”
De La Salle has been in more CIF state title games than any other school but has not won since defeating Centennial-Corona in the Open championship. Since the CIF began the modern day state championships in 2006 the only season De La Salle has been absent was last year when it lost in the NorCal Division 1-AA final to Folsom. If the Spartans can win on Friday it will be an eighth CIF state championship.
Division 2-AA
McClymonds (12-1 including forfeit win) versus Mater Dei Catholic-Chula Vista (10-4)
Friday at 4:00 p.m. at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo
McClymonds is no stranger to CIF state championship bowl games. The tiny school of less than 250 students won three straight bowl game championships in 5-A in 2016, 5-AA in 2017 and 4-A in 2018.
In 2019 Mack was moved up to 2-A and they were soundly beaten by Pacifica, a public school like McClymonds in Oxnard, but with an enrollment of well over 3,000 students.
The CIF dropped them down to 3-A in 2021 and they were matched with Birmingham, another public school with over 3,000 students, only this time they rolled to a 54-7 victory.
This year the CIF moved the Warriors into unchartered territory in the 2-AA division, a move up two divisions, but why not? McClymonds opened its season with a 24-21 OT victory over a Bellarmine team that will be playing for a 3-A championship. They also have a 45-42 victory over San Ramon Valley, and the Wolves are playing for a 2-A title In its one loss, 39-21 to a Pittsburg team playing for a 1-A championship, the Warriors only trailed 22-21 with four minutes to go in the third quarter before getting worn down by a team with an enrollment of close to 4,000 students.
The Northern Regional 2-AA title game 49-35 victory by the Oakland Section champions over Central Section D2 champion Lemoore was certainly no cakewalk. They gave up around 500 yards of offense to Lemoore but countered it with an offense of its own that has averaged over 47 points per game outdid their average. Three-star running back prospect Jaivian Thomas did most of the damage after rushing for nearly 300 yards and four touchdowns.
This will be the first time since 2016 McClymonds has played against a private school in a state title game matchup when they face San Diego Section D1 champion Mater Dei Catholic, but it almost didn’t happen.
The Crusaders fell behind 21-0 at Downey but came back for a 22-21 victory with the winning score coming on the second TD run by junior Anthony McMillian with 3:54 left. Downey still had a chance to win but the defense came up with an interception to seal the outcome.
This could be a showdown between the two team’s running games, Thomas versus McMillian, particularly if it rains.
