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Last week we talked about how “iron sharpens iron” when it came to the East Bay Athletic League and the success its girls’ volleyball teams enjoyed in their postseason runs.
This last week it’s time to use the same analogy for the EBAL football teams.
De La Salle, San Ramon Valley and Amador Valley all advanced to their respective division North Coast Section championship games, with the Spartans and the Dons winning to advance to on to the next stage in the postseason.
San Ramon Valley did not win but fell in a thrilling 35-28 loss to a highly touted Pittsburg team that has won four consecutive NCS Division I titles.
“Last week I got a text from (DLS coach) Alumbaugh about how cool it was to have three teams from the EBAL Mountain Division playing for NCS titles,” Amador Valley coach Danny Jones said. “That speaks to the strength of our league.”
It is down to two teams now. De La Salle, by virtue of their 10-7 Open Division win over Pittsburg, is slated for the CIF Open Championship game against Mater Dei — the top-ranked team in the nation.
The game is set for Dec. 18 at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo at 8 p.m.
Amador has one game left to get to a state title game, with the Dons traveling to McClymonds on Friday (Dec. 6) at 7 p.m.
But before they get to the NorCal finals, the Dons are reveling in the school’s first-ever NCS championship in football.
“Being the first team to win one for our school is special,” Jones said. It’s special for the school, the program and the kids.”
Standing in the way for the Dons to play for a state title — the winner of the Murrieta Mesa and Frontier winner of the SoCal final, on Dec. 13 at Long Beach Community College — is a date with McClymonds this week.
The Warriors have played in a number of NorCal and state final games, but they seem to be a tad bit off this year.
They are 10-4 this year with three of the losses coming outside the Oakland Athletic League.
Common opponents with Amador are San Ramon Valley, where they fell 51-14, and Bishop O’Dowd — a 28-14 win. For perspective, Amador fell 29-28 to San Ramon Valley and beat O’Dowd 42-18 in the NCS D-II final.
At this point, the game does not appear to be streamed but check back on www.nfhsnetwork.com toward the end of the week.
CIF State cross country
The EBAL came so close to winning a pair of CIF State titles on Saturday (Nov. 30) at Woodward Park in Fresno, but just missed in a pair of races.
In the D-I boys race, Arrin Sagiraju of Dougherty Valley was a close second, finishing less than two seconds behind Conor Lott of Clovis North.
Lott finished the three-mile race in 15:04.4, with Sagiraju crossing at 15:06.2. Sagiraju’s time was good enough for the 25th best mark out of all five divisions.
In the team race, Arnold O Beckman High was first with 139 points.
EBAL teams in the race were Dublin (17th, 404), California (19th 450), and Dougherty Valley (20th, 481). Joining Sagiraju as the top runner for his school was Eshaan Hussain of California (14th, 15:26.8) and Daniel Santhiapillai of Dublin (59th, 15:59.9).
In the boys’ D-II race, Trey Caldwell of De La Salle was third. Junior Lesher of Hueneme was the winner at 14:43 with Caldwell third at 14:49.8.
In the team race, Jesuit of Sacramento was the winner with 73 points. EBAL teams in the race were (De La Salle, 5th, 199), Granada (15th, 363) and Amador Valley (19th, 481).
Top runners for teams were George Mikhael of Granada (29th, 15:39.4) and Aiden Versteeg of Amador (82nd, 16:11.16). Mateo Cafaro of Monte Vista was the EBAL best, as a non-team runner (22nd, 15:33.2).
In the girls’ D-1 race, the team winner was Trabuco Hills with only 48 points. Dougherty Valley was 28th with 664 points. Individually the winner was Kylee Blade of Santiago-Corona with a winning time of 16:46.5.
The top runner for Dougherty was Anaya Kumar in 89th at 19:14.4. Other top runners for the EBAL were Emily Bellinger of California (73rd, 18:59.6), Neha Chhabra of Dougherty Valley (103rd, 19:21.0) and Melia Prenton of Dublin (117th, 19:29.5).
In the girls’ D-II race, El Toro finished as the winner with 137 points. Monte Vista (7th, 235) and San Ramon Valley (12th, 318 points) were local results.
Individually, Sadie Englehardt of Venture was the winner at 16:57.6. Sade Bumpus of Granada (16th, 18:07.02) was the top EBAL runner in the race.
Alexandra Powell (25th, 18:18.5), Allie Turns (35th, 18:25.3) and Emma Davidson (53rd, 18:47.8) were their teams’ top runners.
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. This column originally appeared in Tri-Valley Preps Playbook, a weekly sports e-newsletter published by Embarcadero Media Foundation.
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