DANVILLE — Only a handful of players on this year’s De La Salle team were in uniform two years ago when the Spartans went to San Ramon Valley and escaped with a one-point win.
Just in case any of the Spartans players forgot about that game, whether they saw the field or not, Justin Alumbaugh and the rest of De La Salle’s coaching staff played it back for them — practically on a loop — throughout this past week.
The 2018 edition of the Spartans got the message, and put Friday’s game against the Wolves away in the first quarter.
De La Salle jumped out to a 27-point lead in the first 10 minutes and cruised to a 48-14 win over the Wolves in the penultimate regular season game for both teams.
Quarterback Dorian Hale and running backs Shamar Garrett and James Coby each had two touchdown runs in the first half, as the Spartans clinched at least a share of the East Bay Athletic League’s Mountain Division title. De La Salle (9-0, 3-0 EBAL Mountain) closes the regular season next week at home against California, looking to finish the regular season unbeaten for the first time since 2014.
In 2016, the Spartans needed to stop a two-point conversion with just over three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter to pull out a 28-27 win, a rare nail-biter against a local opponent.
“We showed them the film over and over and over,” Alumbaugh said. “We talked about it all week and replayed the game over and over. We wanted to make sure we had a different experience here than we had two years ago.”
In the first quarter, Hale scored on touchdown runs of 4- and 13-yards and Garrett had touchdown runs of 28 and 38 yards, with his second score giving De La Salle a 27-0 lead with 2:32 to go in the opening quarter.
Hale, a sophomore, also completed 5 of 7 passes for 108 yards in the game, as he completed a 38-yard pass to Henry To’oto’o and a 24-yard pass to Isaiah Foskey on the Spartans’ first drive. On De La Salle’s second possession, Hale completed a 30-yard pass to Grant Daley to give the Spartans the ball at the Wolves’ 29. Two plays later, Garrett ran in almost untouched from 28-yards out for De La Salle’s second score.
Hale has become more accurate as the season has progressed. After completing 23 of 45 passes in the first four games of the season, he’s completed 20 of 32 in the last four games that he’s started for 308 yards, five touchdown and one interception.
“He’s getting more savvy, he’s getting a better feel for the offense, and we’re running a lot more stuff,” Alumbaugh said of Hale. “The offense is a lot more varied right now than it was about a month or two ago, which is good. We’re getting the ball out to the receivers more, we’ve got some new elements to our option game. He’s catching on.”
Defensively, the Spartans didn’t allow a San Ramon Valley first down until there was 6:25 left in the first half, as Austin Arends caught a 12-yard pass from quarterback Brandon Cammisa to convert a fourth-and-12 situation at the De La Salle 25. Eight plays later, JP Murphy caught a 6-yard pass in the end zone from Cammisa with 2:49 to go in the second quarter as the Wolves cut De La Salle’s lead to 34-7. .
De La Salle answered right back, though, as Coby found a lane down the sideline for a 65-yard touchdown run with 1:35 to go in the first half.
“The kids never gave up. They fought for 48 minutes and they can be proud about their effort,” Wolves coach Aaron Becker said. “That’s one of the top teams in the country, and they held up. They held up physically and they played the full game out.”
While De La Salle will almost certainly receive the No. 1 seed for the North Coast Section’s Open Division playoffs next month. San Ramon Valley (5-4, 1-2) may need a win over crosstown rival Monte Vista next week to earn one of the top four seeds in the Division I bracket.
“Right now we’re just looking on to Monte Vista and just keep improving, and to keep making the big plays at the right times,” Becker said. “That’s what we need to get better at.”
