De La Salle caps high school sports year with 2 Northern California titles
CONCORD, CA (June 22, 2025) — De La Salle High School opened in 1965 and over its first 14 years established a reputation as providing a fine Catholic education for boys in the central Contra Costa area.
Then in 1979 the school hired 25-year-old Bob Ladouceur to run a football program that had never had a winning season. Not only did Coach Lad make history with his Spartans football team’s exploits that led to a Hollywood motion picture and multiple books published, but he ignited an engine that made De La Salle a power in virtually every sport in the ensuing decades.
The 2024-25 high school sports year ended earlier this month, and the Concord school claimed Northern California championships in golf and baseball to go with its football team’s top NorCal billing last fall. And its North Coast Section open division basketball championship team was one half away from also winning a NorCal championship earlier this year.
These two recent championships add to the mind-numbing historic figures for DLS teams with 292 league titles, 200 NCS championships, 22 Northern California championships, 25 CIF State championships and six national titles.
Golf and baseball each claimed their third NorCal title in the past four years that were two of the seven NCS championship banners won by 2024-25 Spartan teams. Swimming and diving, track and field, basketball, water polo and football were also Section titlists this school year.
Baseball heroics
The Spartans romped through the North Coast Section baseball playoffs scoring double digit runs in all four games including an 11-2 victory over College Park in the finals. Outscoring its foes 48-8, DLS took out some frustration from losing last year’s NCS championship game 1-0 to league foe Granada in a classic game that took two days to complete. It is the only time the Spartans failed to win the Section championships since 2015.
Both DLS and College Park moved on to the Division I NorCal tournament. The Falcons were eliminated in extra innings by Serra while De La Salle defeated Del Oro and St. Mary’s-Stockton to reach the finals.
After grabbing a 2-0 lead, the Spartans fell behind Serra 4-2 in the seventh inning of the championship game. It could have been a larger deficit but centerfielder Nico Baumgartner, who is headed to Fresno State this fall to play football, threw out a Padre runner at home plate in the top of the seventh.
RBI doubles by East Bay Athletic League player of the year Tyler Spangler and Antonio Castro tied the score before Baumgartner beat out an infield single that plated Castro with the winning run.
Coach David Jeans’ teams used similar heroics to win 2022 and 2023 NorCal titles in the final inning as well.
Golf not playing second fiddle
UCLA-bound Josh Kim led DLS to its third Northern California championship in four years and eighth overall at the Berkeley County Club in El Cerrito in late May. The senior had four birdies and an eagle on the 16th hole as the Spartans edged last year’s champions Stevenson by two strokes.
Co-medalist Kim was denied a second straight individual NorCal title when he lost a playoff to Will Chang. Kim was under par all four years at the NorCal Regional championship. He tied for eighth as a freshman and was third his sophomore year, both times for championship DLS teams.
The Spartans won state golf titles in 2006, 2022 and 2023. They were third this year as Stevenson won its second state title.
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.