Prep football: Del Campo forfeits rivalry win over Bella Vista as bad blood boils

The best part of high school football is the competition and the atmosphere. The worst part has too often been paperwork snafus that suddenly upend a season.

This week, the Sac-Joaquin Section confirmed to The Bee that a case involving the suspension of a player led to a forfeit win for Del Campo over Bella Vista, further staining a rivalry that seemed reborn weeks ago. The controversy has led to a he-said, he-said duel between the coaches. And the coaches now wonder if a rivalry and “Battle for Fair Oaks” is on the brink of going away. It started in 1963, when Del Campo opened three miles away from Bella Vista, which opened in 1960.

Del Campo had a junior ejected in a playoff game last season at East Union of Manteca. Per CIF rules, ejected players have to sit out their next game if they are not graduating. That player returned this season but played in opening losses to Golden Valley and Del Oro. Because those were losses, the school does not have to forfeit the games.

The player played against Bella Vista on Sept. 2, a game Del Campo won 31-7 but begrudgingly had to forfeit. What irks Del Campo coach Matt Costa is his insistence that it never should have come to this. The issue could have been raised prior to the third game of the year. Del Campo’s record went from 2-3 to 1-4.

“I’m a new coach with new administration and no one told me or seemed to even know we had a player ejected,” Costa said. “Why didn’t Bella Vista tell us? Why wait? Even my player said he didn’t know about the rule. Now we’re (1-4) and we beat those guys handily. I think it’s because we had a couple of Del Campo coaches who now coach at BV, and they waited because they didn’t like that I fired them and didn’t bring them back. That’s not the way it should work.”

Costa added, “Shoot, man, had I known he wasn’t supposed to play, I wouldn’t have played him in the first game. That’s not what we’re about or what I’m about. I don’t know if I want to even play BV next year if this is what we’ve got going on.”

Bella Vista coach Jim Gray said he isn’t about to apologize, not after his Broncos have taken all manner of defeats for years. On the field, Bella Vista is 3-1, but with the forfeit it is 4-0. The team’s 28-21 win over River Valley on Friday was its first in Capital Valley Conference play since 2016. Bella Vista halted a 48-game losing streak last season.

“Had I known about (the player ejection), I would have told coach Costa before our game so it didn’t catch up to them because that’s not how we want to win games,” Gray said. “But my point is, you’re telling me no one at Del Campo remembers that player got ejected and has to sit out? And come on, man. You can’t play him, by rule, and it’s your fault, not mine.”

Costa agreed that “someone at Del Campo had to know. I was asked if I’m upset with the CIF. No. They’re doing their job. Ultimately, the kid should have sat. Rules are rules.”

Bad blood doomed other rivalries

Gray said he’s concerned with brewing bad blood between the programs. The San Juan Unified School District programs have storied traditions on their campuses for any number of sports and academic achievements. The Del Campo-Bella Vista game at Del Campo included an overflow crowd.

“The game’s going against Del Campo, and I’m trying to coach and we’ve got parents from both sides fighting in the stands,” Gray said. “Maybe we need to settle this all down. Maybe it’s become too heated in this rivalry. I don’t remember a rivalry like this being so intense.”

There have been others. The Del Campo vs. Casa Roble series that began in 1976 ended in 2015 because of bad blood on the field and in the stands. Same story with Davis vs. Woodland, Yolo County rivals that first met in football in 1928. That series was halted after 79 seasons in 2007 because of acrimony between the student sections and adult fans.

The series resumed in 2012 with Davis winning that season and 2013 before it was canceled for good.

El Camino forfeits 2 wins

Also within the San Juan Unified School District, El Camino had to forfeit its victorires this season over Armijo of Fairfield and Cordova, dropping the Eagles from 3-1 to 1-3 heading into a Capital Athletic League opener on Saturday against Rio Americano.

El Camino unknowingly played an ineligible player, one who had started his prep career at Del Campo, then switched to Rio Americano and then El Camino.

Oak Ridge forfeits 3 from 2021

At Oak Ridge, the No. 4 Trojans are enjoying a 4-0 start, which makes the sting of a forgettable 2021 a bit easier to swallow. But due to an ineligible player last season, Oak Ridge had to forfeit its three wins from the 2021 campaign. The section confirmed that this week.

Oak Ridge athletic director Steve White said a transfer student arrived on the El Dorado Hills campus during the COVID-19 year and he said, “this one slipped through the cracks.”

He added, “We have to let the section know when we have a student from another school playing sports, and we didn’t notice and failed on that.”

Oak Ridge forfeited its 2021 rout over Cosumnes Oaks, a goal-line stand effort to beat Elk Grove and a Sierra Foothill League victory over Grant. Sac-Joaquin Section assistant commissioner Will DeBoard said of the Bella Vista and Oak Ridge cases, “When a school plays an ineligible player, which is almost never on purpose, and it’s an accident, which is always the case, it’s still a forfeit.”