By Harold Abend | Contributor
One player came into the CIF North Coast Section Division II title game on the precipice of making Northern California high school football history, the other knew he had it in him.
The house was packed on Dec. 9 at Santa Rosa High and Concord’s Olito Thompson didn’t disappoint with three Northern California rushing records.
But it was Windsor (14-0) and running back Darrian Roman’s two fourth quarter touchdowns that overcame a 20-7 halftime deficit to win 28-20 and give the school it’s first-ever NCS championship.
Thompson set the records, but Roman, Windsor’s two-way star had the more explosive runs, played excellent defense, and gets the title along with his Jaguar teammates.
“I read in the paper that he (Thompson) had more yards than me in three games than I had all year, and that got under my skin,” Roman remarked. “I had to prove myself as a runner and I wanted to stop him on defense.”
The 5-foot-10, 200-pound senior rushed for 176-yards and three touchdowns. He also had nine tackles with two for loss.
When Roman scored on a 1-yard plunge with 6:02 remaining, Windsor had the lead at 21-20.
Concord (10-4) got the ball at its own 29-yard line after the kickoff and went to work using Thompson on six of seven running plays, however the drive stalled at the Jaguars’ 30-yard line and the Minutemen turned it over on downs.
Three plays later, Roman took it 63 yards to the house and the game was all but over.
Even with the first section championship and perfect season in the school’s 10-year history, the Jaguars were not selected for the CIF Division II Bowl Game, although they were Northern California’s only unbeaten team on the board.
“Not getting to state takes nothing away from our kids,” said Windsor first-year coach Rob Gatrell, a Liberty-Brentwood grad that played lineman professionally with the Patriots, 49ers and Rams, plus five years in the Arena League and two years in NFL Europe. “For our kids and community to have that last game is a memory everyone will cherish forever. It can’t be taken away,”
On the other side of the field was a battered warrior who gave everything he had to the very end. A 12-yard completion to Thompson from quarterback Wyatt Morrow on fourth-and-26 “” the 56th time he’d touched the ball on offense that night “” was Concord’s final play of the game.
Still, even in losing, one has to be in awe of the performance of Concord’s bruising, record-setting junior.
Thompson’s carry at 6:08 of the first quarter got him past Jahvid Best (Salesian-Richmond, Cal, Detroit Lions) as the all-time single-season leading rusher in the Metro Bay Area. In 2006, Best ran for 3,225 yards at Salesian.
By the third quarter, he’d passed John Bordenkircher (3,416 yards in 1997 at Dixon) as the single-season leading rusher in NorCal history, according to the ESPNHS Cal-Hi Sports State Record Book. Thompson finished with a whopping 54 times for 285 yards and one touchdown. The 54 carries was also a NorCal record.
He finishes the season with 3,488 yards and 35 touchdowns. Besides the No. 1 spot in Northern California, the yardage gets Thompson the state’s No. 4 spot all-time for most yards in a season. His 408 carries this season is also a NorCal record and puts him at No. 5 on the overall state list.
“Whoa, really, all those records, that’s amazing,” Thompson said. “I never thought I could do that but I guess all the hard work I put in has paid off.”
No many expected a lot from Concord this season after they graduated record-setting quarterback Ricky Lloyd (now at Southern Mississippi) and his mastery of the inside zone passing game of coach Brian Hamilton.
“After three years of the inside zone, it
took 4-5 weeks before we went away from it and started relying on running,” Hamilton said.
With four spots in the state record book already under his belt, Thompson will be working on a fifth place if he can add a little over 1,200 yards next season and get his current career total 3,732 yards over the 5,000 yard entry level mark for that list.
Not surprisingly, Thompson is more into team goals.
“Sure, I’d like to do more amazing things next year but my main goal is to get my team back to the NCS championship game,” he said. “I’m determined to do whatever it takes to get back to NCS, getting stronger, bigger and faster.”