In defeat, De La Salle, Serra show why they are Bay Area powers

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NORWALK — The high school football season ended late Saturday night with St. John Bosco making it four championships in a row for Southern California in the state’s top division, all at the expense of De La Salle.

But in defeat, the Concord power showed why it was once the king of California football, the only seven-time champion. De La Salle scrapped and fought deep into the night, even when victory seemed well beyond its reach as the opponent’s superstars kept making electrifying plays.

Let’s not kid ourselves. De La Salle has athletes — lots of athletes — but not athletes that will be playing at major colleges in the next year or two and eventually on Sundays.

St. John Bosco does.

And in smaller sample size, so did Corona del Mar in the game that preceded De La Salle’s 49-28 loss at Cerritos College.

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In the earlier contest, for the state’s Division 1-A championship, another Bay Area power with close lineage to DLS kept battling and clawing as it charged back from what seemed like a hopeless deficit.

With De La Salle coaches watching from one end of the field, including the architect of the DLS program, legendary Bob Ladouceur, Serra made them proud as it overcame the loss of surprise starting quarterback Daylin McLemore on a late hit out of bounds to nearly send the game to overtime.

When it ended, Serra coach Patrick Walsh shouted, “Let’s go Spartans, Let’s go Spartans,” as De La Salle players began to warm up while Walsh jogged off the field.

The former De La Salle star who helped ignite the program’s national-record 151-game win streak in 1992 then huddled his Serra players on a dark patch of grass between the stadium and the locker rooms and gave them an emotional and tearful speech deep from the heart.

“Sadly I can speak from experience, in 2016 we lost; it hurt. It hurt for a little while,” Walsh told his crushed players. “But several days later, months, whatever, it goes away and what you remember are the guys that you are leaning on right now, the guys you are crying with right now.

“That’s OK. You guys extended the dash as long as you can humanly take it,” Walsh added as he choked up. “You pushed it out to the bitter end. It’s OK to feel pain. … You guys gave me your all out there tonight. Guys are breaking their bodies down, playing 15 weeks of football, with the bye week 16 weeks. We played an NFL season and you guys gave it your all.”

When Walsh finished, he was greeted by his longtime friend, De La Salle coach Justin Alumbaugh, and hugged by Ladouceur.

“I was proud of those guys, and I was proud of Patrick,” Ladouceur said. “He had those guys ready. That was an inspiring performance. They never gave up, man.”

Hours later, during the trophy presentation after St. John Bosco’s victory, Ladouceur hugged this year’s De La Salle star running back and safety, Shamar Garrett, and lauded the effort the senior put forth while nearly rallying the Spartans from a three-score deficit.

Serra had its hands full with Corona del Mar quarterback Ethan Garbers, who threw for 255 yards and four touchdowns and ran for 142 yards and a TD. Garbers is committed to Washington.

In the late game, De La Salle could not stop Clemson-bound quarterback DJ Uiagalelei and his endless supply of top-flight receivers, who worked themselves wide open and were difficult to tackle.

“We knew athletically we were overmatched,” Alumbaugh said. “It says a lot about our program, it says a lot about our team that we’re out there battling with those guys. I’ve got to be honest with you, that’s not enough. We had a chance to win this game, and we just didn’t make a couple of plays when we needed to. They had a lot to do with it. Don’t get me wrong. All the credit goes to those guys.”

Even when De La Salle had an open path to Uiagalelei, the 6-foot-5, 245-pound megastar shed the tackle and made a play.

“We’re in a clean blitz and bounced off him like a pinball,” Alumbaugh said.

De La Salle got to within a touchdown with just under 10 minutes to go and was 2 yards from closing the gap to a touchdown again when a fumble, scoop and length-of-the-field dash to the goal line ended it with 3 1/2 minutes to play.

There were tears, dejection and disappointment for De La Salle, just as there was for Serra.

But with the man who coached both teams’ head coaches in high school watching, it was no surprise that the teams went down swinging.

“I think it says a lot about our programs and I think it says a lot about who taught us,” Alumbaugh said. “I think it says a whole about who taught us how to be, how to coach and how to compete and how to fight.”

Saturday, scrapping and clawing made things interesting and fun, but they were not enough for the big prize.