Clayton Valley Charter girls make history as first-ever DAL flag football champions
CONCORD, CA (Nov. 16, 2023) — Clayton Valley Charter football has been in its glory days during the past dozen years with three North Coast Section championships and then a 2019 State title, but the school’s girls flag football team made its own kind of history recently.
This fall California introduced girls flag football as a sanctioned sport. The 7v7 game was picked up by many schools but an uncertainty about just how many schools would be taking part caused the state sanctioning body, CIF, to not schedule any post-season play.
The Diablo Athletic League was one of many Bay Area leagues to have a flag football schedule with 10 schools taking part and Mt. Diablo joining in at the end of the season. The games were held in a three-team format with each school playing two games on Wednesday.
Clayton Valley Charter and Northgate ended the season with 8-1 records, two games ahead of College Park and Acalanes. In a critical two-game series Oct. 18 the Ugly Eagles edged College Park 7-6 and Northgate 20-16 to effectively claim the first-ever league championship.
During the year, four East Bay leagues decided to have an unofficial Tournament of Champions for the top two teams in each league. Clayton Valley won the automatic berth from the DAL.
League commissioner Mark Tran had planned a season-ending jamboree to wrap up the year for the first-time program before talk of a post-season ever took place.
It was decided the DAL Jamboree would serve as the way to determine the other league representative at TOC. Clayton Valley was shut out in its jamboree opener by College Park. Eventually, Acalanes and College Park played for the Jaboree title with the Dons winning 6-0.
Based on enrollment, Clayton Valley was placed in Division II at the TOC. The Ugly Eagles defeated Heritage 46-12 in the semi-finals and beat Acalanes 12-6 in overtime to claim the historic championship when sophomore Reagan Richards-Costello made a diving touchdown catch on CVC’s first play of overtime to win the title.
Broncos win three DAL titles
Northgate boys and girls won Diablo Athletic League Vally Division water polo titles and both teams advanced to the NCS playoffs., The boys lost in the second round of Division II while the Bronco girls are in the semi-finals of Division I this week.
College Park is in the boys D-II semis this week facing Redwood, which eliminated Northgate in the last round.
De La Salle is two-time defending Open Division champs but are seeded second to No. 1 Miramonte in Saturday’s championship game, which will be the third straight years they’ve met for the title.
Carondelet was eliminated by top seed Miramonte for the second season in a row in the NCS Open semi-finals.
Girl’s Golf – Northgate’s girls won the DAL Foothill title, earning them a spot at the NCS Division I championships.
Carondelet finished third at NCS to make it to this week’s Northern California golf championships.
Girls Volleyball – Carondelet made it to the second round of the NCS Division playoffs before losing a five-set match to Campolindo. Northgate fell to American in the opening round.
Jay Bedecarré
Jay Bedecarré is a long-time resident and writer in Concord and Clayton. He began his newspaper writing career while still a senior at Mt. Diablo High School and he has been part of The Pioneer since its inception in 2003. Jay also operates Bay Area Festivals, presenting events around the San Francisco Bay Area including Bay Area KidFest annually in Downtown Concord.