De La Salle takes a couple of knees and wins, 28-14, over unbeaten Crenshaw.
After De Anthony Thomas' two electric scoring runs that gave the Cougars a 14-zip advantage, the Spartans dominated in methodical and precise fashion.
It was just another example of what that's the best high school football program in America, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.
Before I pack up the laptop and bust the Accord back to Laguna Niguel, my award winners after a long Saturday:
BEST TEAM
That's easy -- De La Salle.
BEST-COACHED TEAM
That's even easier -- De La Salle
BEST PLAYER
And that's REALLY easy -- Robert Woods of Serra.
He'll be in the NFL four or five years from now.
RUNNER-UP, BEST PLAYER
Nicholas Echeverry. His four field goals, including the 23-yarder as time expired, saved the Servite Friars' bacon. It got them a State D-II title (33-30 over Rocklin), as well.
Best team was Crenshaw, tailback was hurt in second quarter. Lets be fair and realistic in your comments
The Crenshaw coach is nothing but a buffoon. Poor us poor us poor us. Just go away loser boy.
You can only "Comment" on the Games Played not "what ifs". It's a fairly simple concept. Frankie B just called it as he saw it.
I wanted Crenshaw to win but DSL played better with the kids they had on the field. That's the way games are played, right - with players on the field and not with "but...if we only had...the Refs...the weather was bad...or our best player was out.
Injuries are part of the game and as unfortunate as it was to have their star running back out, the other kids didn't or couldn't step up to pull out the win.
DSL was the best team on the field on that day.
After Crenshaw jumped ahead in dominant fashion, I turned to my son and said, "lets wait and see what happens in the 2nd half".
Conditioning, injuries, coaching moves, adjustments, experience, and will - once the 3rd period starts the fun begins in sports when two good teams with different styles are going at it.
Crenshaw might have been so dominating for the first half of 90% of their games this year that they couldn't adjust in the 2nd half with having their star player out and facing a high quality opponent.
CIF 1 CITY 0. As we all knew. LA City football does not compare to CIF. No more City football in state games.
Williams,As I recall De Anthony scored two touchdowns in the 1st 5 minutes of the 1st Qt, after that De La contained him until the very end of the second Qt when he was injured. That being it seems like De La had made some adjustments to contain De Anthony for 1.5 Qt. I saw a team in Crenshaw that was simply out played and didnt have the conditioning like De La to play a whole 4Qt's of football. Crenshaws defense was flat out worn out in the 4 Qt. Its very difficult to compete against a team like De La unless you can play 4 Qt's of football. Better luck next year.
Individual emotions run high when an important championship game is being played by two strong teams. The game looked like Crenshaw would blow out De La Salle but it was obvious by early in the second quarter that Crenshaw was a one dimensional team during the offensive line up and De La Salle took advantage of it and made the adjustments. Even though Crenshaws quarter back did an outstanding job by throwing the ball in the third & fourth quarter and marching the team down field, Crenshaw was not able to capitalize. One tailback is not the team but all 11 players in the offense & defense. If both the offensive & defense do not work as an effective team, then how are you going to win a game by putting all hopes into one player?