2-time state champs better than advertised
He does it to me every year. I get off the phone with McClymonds-Oakland football coach
Michael Peters every summer, thinking, “Mack is finally going to struggle.” Ha. The Warriors might have lost 18 of 30 players off last year’s team, including nine offensive starters, but it just doesn’t seem to matter.
Not if McClymonds’ 26-0 home win over previous No. 19 Marin Catholic-Kentfield on Friday is any indication.
Mack, a two-time defending state champion, held the usually high-powered Wildcats offense to 100 yards on 58 plays, and senior linebacker
Islee Cassidy picked up a fumble and rambled 40 yards for the game’s final score.
Otherwise, it was largely the work of perhaps the best running-back tandem in the Bay Area that did most of the damage. Jarmar Julien rushed 20 times for 130 yards and Adi
Anderson added 90 yards on eight carries for the Warriors, who also got two touchdown passes from senior quarterback K’aun Green.
With the defense playing so well — especially two-way senior lineman Mark Hoching — Mack missed many opportunities to score more. At the end of the game, Peters opted not to add to the blowout and had Green take a knee inside the 5.
Despite handing the defending North Coast Section Division 3 champs their first shutout loss since 2015, Peters was still a little annoyed.
“We have a lot of new guys on offense, so we were predictably sloppy,” Peters said. “I knew we’d be OK on defense. We’ll have to get a lot better this week. A whole lot better.”
This week, the ninth-ranked Warriors host the fastest-rising program in the Bay Area, Liberty-Brentwood, which is coming off a 57-0 defeat of Gilroy. Liberty led 50-0 midway through the second quarter, a week after piling up more than 400 yards of offense in a 35-10 win over perennial Sac-Joaquin Section power Vacaville.
Jay Butterfield, Liberty’s highly touted 6-foot-6 junior quarterback, has thrown for 501 yards, seven touchdowns and no interceptions. He has at least four superb targets, including Sione Vaki (five college offers, including Oklahoma State) and three legitimate running threats.
Peters scouted Liberty against Gilroy: “I stayed for a half and had seen enough,” he said. “As long as we play fast
and physical, we’ll have a chance.”
1 Riordan lost a 49-48 game at Salesian-Richmond, but it found a quarterback in firstyear starter Adham Abdelghani (18-for-32, 293 yards, three TDs, 79 yards rushing).
1 Two teams that pulled off the biggest upsets of the week moved into The Chronicle’s Top 25. Dublin’s Grant Manning scored on a keeper with 25 seconds left, and a lastsecond interception by Alex
Gonsalves clinched a 22-21 win at defending state champion Milpitas; a goal-line stand in the final seconds secured Wilcox-Santa Clara’s 10-6 win over then-No. 8 Valley Christian.
1 Monte Vista-Danville second-year coach Matt Russi has his team rolling on defense. The Mustangs have given up 12 combined points against high-powered offenses Granite Bay and San Leandro.
1 Watch out for the Bay Valley Athletic League. Liberty, Pittsburg, Freedom-Oakley and Antioch ranked among the top 17 teams, and Deer ValleyAntioch improved to 2-0 with a 58-6 win over visiting Northgate-Walnut Creek. Patrick
Robinson rushed for 260 yards and four TDs as the Wolverines piled up 538 yards. The five winning BVAL schools Friday prevailed by a cumulative score of 268-40.
1 Returning longtime Las Lomas-Walnut Creek head coach Doug Longerio’s team is 2-0 after a surprisingly lopsided 48-13 defeat of visiting Alhambra-Martinez. MaxPreps senior writer Mitch Stephens covers high school sports for The San Francisco Chronicle.