Bay Area teams advance to NorCal playoffs
The performances at the top divisions were impressive, if not dominating. Pittsburg (North Coast, Division 1), Los Gatos (Central Coast, D1), McClymonds (Oakland) and Lincoln (San Francisco) won their section championship games by a combined score of 17735.
The only competitive game among the four was Pittsburg’s 3721 defeat of San Ramon Valley-Danville on Friday at Dublin High School. The Pirates put the game away in the final three minutes on touchdown runs of 34 yards by Jamar Searcy and 8 yards by Elijah Bow. Searcy (18 carries, 134 yards) was everywhere with three rushing touchdowns, an interception that set up Bow’s TD and a forced fumble that Samu Iosia recovered inside the Pittsburg 10. Searcy also had five catches for 58 yards.
A 99-yard touchdown pass from Pittsburg’s Marley Alcantara (18-for-24, 317 yards) to Bobby Shaw III broke a 14-14 tie midway through the third quarter. On 3rdand-14, Alcantara let loose from deep in his end zone and Shaw, the son of the former Cal wide receiver, made a lunging fingertip grab while nearly losing his balance near midfield. Heregained his footing and was gone.
The Pittsburg defense did the rest, holding San Ramon Valley’s offense without a score in the second half. A 39-yard pick-six by the Wolves’ Marco Jones (20 tackles) cut Pittsburg’s lead to 24-21 midway through the fourth quarter. But Pittsburg (13-0) had an answer en route to its third straight NCS Division 1 title and sixth overall. Noah Quesada had five catches for 100 yards and Shaw three for 120. The Pirates finished with 516 total yards.
San Ramon Valley (10-3) got two first-half touchdown passes from Luke Baker, who sat out the second half of the fourth quarter after suffering what X-rays later revealed was a broken tibia. Baker finished his career with more than 7,300 passing yards, 83 touchdowns, 750 rushing yards and 10 more scores.
• Los Gatos (11-2) raced to a 35point lead en route to a 49-14 throttling of longtime rival Wilcox-Santa Clara (8-5). Jaylen Thomas scored four first-half touchdowns — two receiving, one rushing, and one on an 82-yard kickoff return. Los Gatos recovered four fumbles, repeatedly capitalizing on short fields to win their 16th section title. Boxer Kopcsak-Yeung rushed for three touchdowns and A.J. Minyard passed for two.
• McClymonds gave retiring coach Michael Peters one last Oakland Section title with a 56-0 Silver Bowl home win over Oakland Tech on Saturday. Redmani Albert scored four TDs and Tajir Golden three for the Warriors (9-2), who won their 12th straight section title, including 10 under Peters. McClymonds outscored its five Oakland Athletic League opponents 251-0 this season and under Peters was 50-0 in regular-season OAL play.
• Lincoln won its second straight Turkey Day Game/SFS title, third in four years and 14th overall with a 35-0 win over Balboa as Jamelle Newman rushed 21 times for 172 yards and two touchdowns and Andrias Allanigue connected twice with Kevin Zhao on touchdown passes. The defense allowed just 82 yards.
• In all, 12 Bay Area section champions were crowned. Combined with the previous week’s Open Division winners Serra (CCS) and De La Salle-Concord (NCS), 14 Metro teams qualified for Northern California play.
More NCS: Jayvon Bolds scored on a 15-yard run with 41 seconds left giving El Cerrito (12-1) a 34-31 win over Windsor in the Division 2 final at Diablo Valley College. Micah Avery rushed for 145 yards and Gary Youngblood added a 68-yard TD catch and had two interceptions (one pick-six) for the Gauchos, who withstood big games from Windsor QB Judson Anderson (four TD passes) and his younger brother Hayden (three TD catches). … Senior QB Peter Macaulay threw for one touchdown and ran for another and Charles Williams added a 50-yard TD run and his seventh interception of the year, leading Marin Catholic-Kentfield (12-1) to a 24-3 win over Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa (11-2) in the Division 3 final. Both North Bay powers entered with 13 NCS titles. … Paul Kuhner returned the opening kick 97 yards for a TD and Niko White and Sully Bailey added scoring runs as Acalanes-Lafayette (9-4) beat San Marin-Novato 24-7 win in Division 4. … Carson Blair passed for four TDs to lead Miramonte-Orinda (9-3) to its ninth section crown with a 42-20 victory over St. Bernard’s-Eureka (9-4) in Division 5. … Jack Davis scored his 26th TD of the season and Gabe Casanovas threw three TD passes to lift top-seeded St. Vincent-Petaluma (11-2) to a 48-12 win over Salesian-Richmond (10-3) in Division 6. It was St. Vincent’s ninth section title.
More CCS: Palo Alto linebacker Anthony Landa Mendoza stopped a two-point halfback option pass with 42 seconds left, securing a 3433 win over Mountain View in the Division 4 final. Palo Alto (8-5) fought back from a 20-14 fourthquarter deficit behind Jason Auzenne, who scored three touchdowns, and QB Declan Packer. Mountain View (6-7) got three TD runs by Arturo Hernandez, his last a 1-yarder to close to 34-33 before the Spartans went for the win. … South San Francisco won 13-7 over Santa Teresa-San Jose in the Division 5 final. A 3-yard TD run by Marcus Mercurio midway through the third quarter gave the Warriors (12-1) the lead for good. Santa Teresa (6-7) scored on a blocked punt that was recovered in the end zone. It was the third section title for South San Francisco, which shut down its program three years ago because of lack of players.