Sacred Heart Cathedral flips its script

A quick scan through Sacred Heart Cathedral’s recent football history looks like a bad run on the stock market — two league wins in the past five seasons, eight wins overall.

That’s what makes the start to this season so wildly rejuvenating for the San Francisco school.

A nail-biting 21-14 win last week over St. Ignatius in the Bruce-Mahoney rivalry game improved the Fighting Irish’s record to 4-0 and matched the program’s West Catholic Athletic League win total from the past four seasons combined.

Perhaps more important, the win was SHC’s first over St. Ignatius since 2011, which happens to be the last time the Irish had a winning overall record.

What changed?

“When I got the job in late February, the kids just started to buy into the program I was trying to put together,” said coach Barry McLaughlin, who had been a longtime assistant at the school. “That was the biggest thing I had to do.”

Now comes a bigger test, a trip to Mountain View on Friday night to play St. Francis. The Lancers are 2-2, but their losses have come against the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in this week’s Bay Area News Group Top 20, De La Salle and Valley Christian.

“In this league, there are no gimmes,” McLaughlin said. “We’re going to prepare the guys just like we have every other week. You prepare, you worry about yourselves, you prep to execute and you go out Friday night hoping you execute and give yourself a chance.”

Milestone win

Twenty-four years ago, Bret Almazan-Cezar won his first game as a high school girls volleyball coach, leading Lincoln-Stockton to a win over he believes Merced.

“I took the job because I’d just switched from mortgage brokeraging,” Almazan-Cezar said. “It grew from there.”

Almazan-Cezar built Lincoln into a powerhouse before moving on to Archbishop Mitty, where the wins — and championships — continued to multiply. Last week, Almazan-Cezar won his 800th match as Mitty swept Valley Christian in three sets.

“I’ve met a lot of these people because of the game,” Almazan-Cezar said.

All-Star bound

St. Francis defensive lineman Tyler Manoa has received an invitation to play in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, scheduled for Jan. 6 in San Antonio.