Freedom’s win means plenty
Kevin Hartwig’s voice sounded a little rough Saturday. Not surprising, given the effort and energy it took for his Freedom football team to defeat a sizzling opponent with several top-tier college prospects on its roster.
“Exhausted,” the coach said. “It was a rough game last night. But it was a great game. It was fun.”
Freedom is right back where it was at this point last season, impressively undefeated and building a resume that could be awfully difficult to ignore when the North Coast Section selects its four-team Open Division in November.
On the flip side, the opponent Freedom defeated 42-21 on Friday, star-studded Bishop O’Dowd, is all but eliminated from the Open conversation — unless it pulls off the stunner of the century and wins at De La Salle this Friday.
Last season, two teams from the powerful and wildly deep Bay Valley Athletic League — champion Freedom and runner-up Pittsburg — received Open invitations, along with De La Salle and the Diablo Athletic League’s Valley Conference champion Clayton Valley Charter.
Monte Vista, the East Bay Athletic League champion, did not. Its bid for a perfect record ended with a loss at De La Salle to close the regular season, a result that sent Monte Vista to Division I.
In some ways, this season is shaping up in similar fashion.
De La Salle, Freedom, Pittsburg, Clayton Valley and EBAL front-runner San Ramon Valley look like the top contenders for the four Open spots. And just like Monte Vista last year, San Ramon’s final regular-season game is at De La Salle.
Freedom obviously can’t stumble more than once in the BVAL, which is ridiculously loaded. The Falcons have this weekend off, then open league play at home Oct. 6 against Pittsburg.
But there is more to worry about for Freedom than Pittsburg and vice versa. Heritage is undefeated and scoring points at a pinball pace, and Liberty and Antioch have just one loss.
“That’s the thing, too,” Hartwig said. “We were laughing last night. Shoot man, we could easily go 3-2 or who knows with our league? We still have a long way to go.”
Yes, they do. But all that said, the win Friday is something Freedom needed to give itself a little insurance on the road to the Open.
“That’s a great football team we played last night,” said Hartwig, whose team has handed O’Dowd its only two losses in the past 20 games. “We came out at half and got a good stop and got back up by two scores and kind of got rolling defensively.”
The win was Freedom’s 18th consecutive in the regular season, dating to a loss to Antioch in October 2015.
Next foe: Pittsburg. Ultimate destination: Return trip to the Open.
“That’s the ultimate goal,” Hartwig said. “We want to try to get back to where we were last year. Now we know how to coach it, how to handle it, the four weeks with the Open and byes and all. But I just want to get through (the next game). That’s our big goal.”