It wasn’t easy. Not at all.
But De La Salle, playing on its home field in Concord, eventually put away Oakland powerhouse McClymonds 21-0 on Friday night to stretch its winning streak to four games.
Dominic Kelley scored on two touchdown runs and Toa Faavae threw his first touchdown pass of the season – a 38-yarder over the middle to Robert Santiago – to account for the scoring.
But the story of the night was defense.
De La Salle’s was more dominant than Mack’s as Drew Cunningham and Co. had another impressive performance.
Santiago’s interception with 2:51 left put the bow on the shutout.
Afterward, DLS coach Justin Alumbaugh praised his defense but also gave credit to Mack and its longtime coach Michael Peters.
“I kept telling everybody,” Alumbaugh said. “I’m like, ‘You’ve got to watch film on this team. They play hard. They’re physical. That’s a good team. Coach Peters, I have the utmost respect for him. What he does for that program. I am glad we got to play.”
De La Salle (4-2) drove inside McClymonds’ 20-yard line four times in the first half but scored only once, on a 5-yard run by Kelley early in the third quarter.
Sophomore quarterback Brayden Knight came off the bench to complete three passes on the scoring drive, including a huge pass to tight end DJ Asiasi that gave the Spartans a first-and-goal at the 6.
Aside from that, De La Salle couldn’t convert against a defense that shut out Bellarmine and Bishop O’Dowd to open the second before losing 35-7 at San Ramon Valley two weeks ago.
Mack (2-2) didn’t make a first down until its punter picked up a dropped snap from the end zone and ran nearly 40 yards. A late hit moved the ball to the DLS 48.
The visitors drove inside the 30 but were unable to score before the clock expired to end the half.
Faavae’s touchdown pass to Santiago made it 14-0 early in the third quarter.
DLS threatened to stretch the lead to three touchdowns late in the period but a fumble at the 1 was recovered by Mack in the end zone.
The home team eventually got its third touchdown when Kelley scored on a 17-yard run with 5:12 to go.
“Certainly some of it’s on us and our execution,” Alumbaugh said of the inability to convert scoring chances. “But you can’t take everything away from them. They’re a good team. They crammed the box with everybody. We were trying to go right at ’em. We had some success at times.
“But we just couldn’t get that consistency we had (last week) against Folsom. We were kind of disjointed offensively. I didn’t like our surge on the offensive line like we saw the past couple of weeks. But obviously, McClymonds has a lot to do with that. Those guys play their tails off.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com