Concord schools De La Salle, CVCHS sit atop NCS football playoffs
For the 4th time in eight years Concord high schools won the top two divisions in the North Coast Section football playoffs.
As usual, De La Salle captured Division 1 on Friday night with a 49-7 victory over long-time rivals Pittsburg. This gave the Spartans their 28th successive NCS title. Back in 1991 Pitt defeated DLS in the Section finals and since that time the Spartans have not lost in over 310 consecutive games against teams north of Fresno (including 31 wins over Pittsburg).
The reward for De La Salle? They will play the No. 1 team in the country St. John Bosco of Bellflower Dec. 14 in the CIS Open Division Bowl Game. Bosco rallied from a 28-5 deficit to stun the previous top-ranked team, Mater Dei of Santa Ana, 39-34 in the Southern Section championship game. DLS has been to all 14 CIF State championships since the games restarted in 2006. The NorCal power has been steamrolled the past 3 years by Bosco (2016) and Mater Dei (2017-18).
Clayton Valley Charter benefitted this fall from the new NCS division classifications that placed the Ugly Eagles back in Division 2 after they were in Open Division the past 3 years where they played the likes of Pitt and DLS. In an ironic twist of fate, CVCHS met Campolindo of Moraga in the championship game and extracted some “poetic justice” according to coach Tim Murphy with a 27-7 victory in the D2 title match at Pittsburg.
Campolindo was the most vocal advocate of moving Clayton Valley Charter football out of the Diablo Athletic League before this season. The Ugly Eagles were moved to the East Bay Athletic League against Division 1 teams like De La Salle, Monte Vista and San Ramon Valley and only won a single league game. Their strength of schedule and non-league record still had them as the top seed in Division 2, which they rolled through by a combined 111-23 score in three games. DLS was even move impressive in its three D1 games 167-34.
CVCHS won three NCS Division 2 championships (2012-14-15), advancing to the State Bowl Game the latter two years before being placed in the Open from 2016 to 2018. Campo has its own distinguished Section record this decade, winning five championships in nine years since 2011 (three in D3 and a pair in D2 after Clayton Valley charter moved out of the division).
The Ugly Eagles (8-5) will be in their fourth Northern California Regional Bowl Game since 2012 (2 wins and 1 loss) this Friday when they host Elk Grove (10-4) at Gonsalves Stadium in Concord at 7:30 p.m. The winner of that Division 2-AA game will meet the winner of the Aquinas of San Bernardino (12-2) at San Juan Hills (11-3) Southern California matchup in the State 2-AA Bowl Game on Friday the 13th, 4 p.m. at Cerritos College Falcon Field in Norwalk.
Watch CVCHS celebration video on Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/status/1201225592877662208