The Spartans made it back-to-back wins over WCAL contenders.
The theme at De La Salle’s practices this week was “domination.”
It showed throughout every phase of Friday night’s convincing 42-7 win over the St. Francis Lancers, one that affirms the Spartans as the top team in Northern California.
Four different Spartans ran for touchdowns in a rushing attack that averaged 8.7 yards per carry, and the defense held a St. Francis team that scored 69 points across its first two games without an offensive touchdown.
“Holding those guys out of the end zone, that’s great,” De La Salle head coach Justin Alumbaugh said. “We moved the ball well, we completed the passes we needed to and our offensive line was physical. I really liked the improvement that we had from last week to this week in our defensive run fits.”
St. Francis (2-1) never ran a play in the red zone. The Lancers did get inside the De La Salle 25 on their opening drive but missed a 38-yard field goal, and Niko Baumgartner intercepted a deep shot late in the first half.
That interception and the punt that De La Salle (3-0) forced after just one first down to start the second half effectively killed any momentum that St. Francis could have created on junior safety Sean Walsh’s 45-yard pick-six with 4:27 left in the second quarter.
By the time Walsh got the visitors on the board, De La Salle had struck three times. Toa Faavae ran for a 20-yard touchdown four plays into the game after Dominic Kelley gained 24 and sophomore Duece Jones-Drew picked up 27, and Kelley found the end zone from 14 yards out on a 19-play drive that ate up nearly eight minutes.
“Sometimes an 18-play drive is beautiful, but I would like to score a little quicker.” Alumbaugh said of the lengthy drive, in which the Spartans overcame two holding penalties and a false start. “But that’s a good defense. They know where to be, they’ve got a lot of size, a lot of speed and a lot of physicality. It’s not easy to move the ball on them.”
The third touchdown drive was much more like the first. Jones-Drew started it off with a gain of 6, Portland State commit Derrick Blanche Jr. went for 40 and Kelley finished it with a 21-yard run.
Jones-Drew, who ran 12 times for 79 yards, made it 27-7 with a 1-yard dive midway through the third. Faavae completed 5 of 8 passes for 38 yards and ran 10 times for 63 yards, with his second score coming on a 5-yard run two plays into the fourth quarter. Brayden Knight completed the two-point conversion to Blanche, and Gregory Jones III kickstarted a running clock for the final 2:30 by picking up 52 yards, then scoring on a 4-yard run on the next play.
“We worked a lot this summer on the urgency of getting off the ball and punching the other team in the mouth,” said Blanche, who ran 11 times for a team-high 109 yards. “That’s something we really emphasize.”
A week after his record-breaking 357-yard performance, BYU commit Kingston Keanaaina led St. Francis with 16 carries for 113 yards, but had little help. His teammates accounted for just 51 yards of total offense, and Keanaaina was held to minus-2 yards in the second half after running 10 times for 115 in the first two quarters, including a 60-yard pickup on his team’s second play that would have resulted in a touchdown if not for a brave effort by Jaden Jefferson.
“We knew he was a great runner, and we handled him with our physicality and effort,” junior linebacker Bubba Vargas said of Keanaaina. “We’ve got big, strong guys that are quicker than me. Our strength is those guys moving down the line.”
Nine different players, including Vargas, recorded a tackle for loss for De La Salle.
“That’s a very good football team,” St. Francis head coach Greg Calcagno said. “They got back to what made them very successful against us last year.”
Since starting last season 0-2, De La Salle has won 14 of 15 games, a run that started at St. Francis. The lone loss came to Mission Viejo in the CIF 1-AA Championship Game.
The Spartans will hit the road for the first time in 2024 next Friday, paying a visit to St. Mary’s-Stockton (2-1). The Rams beat De La Salle 45-35 in 2022, the last time the Spartans made the trip to the Central Valley.
Next week is St. Francis’ bye week. The Lancers host Bellarmine (0-3) in the Holy War to open WCAL play on Sept. 27. St. Francis has won its last eight meetings with the Bells.