That the Foothill High varsity football team had to forfeit a game to De La Salle last Friday may have come as a surprise to many; to me, it was inevitable.
The Falcons have been fighting numbers for some time now but came into this season with 44 players on the roster. However, it wasn’t a deep 44 players.
Injuries have taken their toll on Foothill, and following the Falcons 41-29 loss to Clayton Valley on Oct. 13, Haubner was looking at suiting up maybe 24 players for the game with the Spartans.
And that included undersized and inexperienced players.
In all, of the 22 starters at the beginning of the season, 16 players were out for Foothill.
On the Saturday following Clayton Valley, Foothill coach Greg Haubner started to look at the numbers with his staff. On Sunday, Oct. 15, it looked like the game would work, but illnesses the next day shifted the decision for Haubner.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” Haubner said. “I had to make the last-hour call and let De La Salle know on Tuesday that we couldn’t go. We just have no depth.”
The Spartans were able to scratch and claw, getting a game with El Cerrito on Friday night.
At some point the safety of the players must be a determining factor. If the Falcons were to put a team out on the field against the Spartans, there would be players who are not even 140 pounds banging heads with De La Salle — a national powerhouse.
There are a few contributing factors to the decline of the once-proud and successful football program at the Pleasanton school.
The pool of football players at Foothill has been shrinking. There is no freshman team again this year.
And there are capable athletes at the school that would be major players for the football team who opted not to play football but rather focus on other sports. By last count, there are at least 13 athletes opting not to play football.
Everything together with the injuries is devastating.
“We are stacking bodies unlike any other time,” Haubner said. “We are just beat up.”
I have written in this space before that even suffering numbers-wise, each week Haubner and his staff send out a group that will battle.
Take Friday the 13th, for example. Undermanned, on the road at Clayton Valley, one of top programs in the section, and the Falcons battled to the tune of putting 29 points on the board.
Hopefully the Falcons will get healthy before their game scheduled with San Ramon Valley this Friday (Oct. 27). The seniors that have put three years into the program certainly deserve that.
Foothill volleyball
The Falcons ended the regular season with a sweep of Amador Valley to end the regular season, followed by a pair of come-from-behind playoff wins to run their winning streak to 30.
The win over Amador was by 25-22, 25-10, 25-19. Highlights came from Paige Bennett (16 kills, 11 digs, 10 service points), Kaycie Burdick (15 digs, 11 kills) and Katie Salonga (37 assists, 8 service points).
In the East Bay Athletic League semifinals, the Falcons beat Monte Vista 17-25, 18-25, 25-17, 25-19, 15-13.
Salonga (45 assists, 10 digs), Bennett (25 kills, 13 digs), Nisa Kincaid (6 kills, 1 block), Lulu Hoenninger (6 kills, 2 blocks) and Kait Vogel (21 digs) provided the highlights.
Foothill took the title with an 18-25, 22-25, 25-21, 25-19, 15-13 win over San Ramon Valley. Bennett (19 kills, 18 service points, 16 digs), Salonga (46 assists, 11 digs), Burdick (13 kills, 10 digs) and Hoenninger (6 blocks, 5 kills) led the way.
Girls’ tennis
The Falcons won against Carondelet 5-4, with singles victories by Sagarika Kashyap, Amelia Unmentum, Isabelle Kang, and Michelle Lee. The doubles team of Aarushi Raj/Riley Young also won.
In a 5-4 win over Cal High, Umentum, Lee, Hayden Lu and Vinny Trivedi won in singles. The team of Clara Song/Grace Mundaden also won.
A 7-2 win over Dougherty Valley saw Maya Wu, Kashyap, Umentum and Lee win in singles. The teams of Song/Mundaden and Young/Raj also won.
For crosstown Amador, the Dons fell 6-3 to unbeaten Monte Vista last week. Montana Parkinson-Lubold and Neha Reddy won in singles. Aditi Deshpande/Sanvi Sharma squeaked out the only doubles win.
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. To contact him about his Pleasanton Preps column, email acesmag@aol.com.
