This is it. All the Marbles. All the days in the gym, out in the rain and cold weather, the days their body said “NO!”…but their mindset said yes. This is it. For most of these young men and the lives of their families, their friends, their community and of course their school, there has been no larger moment. Everybody is all in. This is it.
On Saturday, December 14th, at 6:00pm, Del Norte High School and their Warrior football team will host the California Interscholastic Federation Division 5-AA Championship Bowl. The best from northern California versus the best of southern California.
The 14-0 El Monte Lions will travel over 750 miles from Los Angeles to Crescent City this Saturday to challenge the 13-1 Del Norte Warriors for the 2019 California Interscholastic Federation Division 5-AA State Championship.
The Del Norte Warriors have clawed their way to the very top of the mountain, and it wasn’t easy. With the only single blemish on an otherwise perfect season being a loss in mid-September to Mazama in Klamath Falls, the Warriors went on a nine game winning streak including a 4 game play-off march to the State Championship and a 13-1 over-all record.
Del Norte handed Alhambra a 41-6 loss back on November 15th in the Warriors first step on their way up the mountain to the CIF Championship game.
The win over Alhambra earned Del Norte a home play-off game against Moreau Catholic from Hayward, CA on November 23rd. The Warriors shut down the Moreau Catholic Mariner run game and sent the Mariners home with a 28-7 loss before taking the Warriors show on the road.
The first stop was a neutral field in Hayward, CA to take on the Encinal Jets out of Alameda. CA. The Jets took a 0-7 lead, but the Warrior run game put Del Norte up 14-7 at the half. The Jets made key adjustments at the halftime break, “We changed up some things up front and did a few different things with our inside guys so their trap wouldn’t work as well.” Encinal’s defensive coordinator was quoted as saying after the game. The Jets line adjustment kept the Del Norte running game out of the endzone in the second half.
After a 68 yard Encinal 4th quarter touch down run made the score 14-13, an unsportsmanlike penalty followed by a false start resulted in a very long extra point attempt that hit the upright, leaving the Warriors a 14-13 lead late.
Leading 14-13, Del Norte would block a game winning Encinal field goal attempt with seconds left in the game to advance.
The win in Hayward advanced the Warriors to California Interscholastic Federation Division 5-AA Northern regional to be played just 30 miles to the south of Hayward, in Sunnyvale, Ca. against The Kings Academy Knights.
The Kings Academy Knights came into last Friday evenings game boasting an average of 355 yards of offense per game and 4,957 total offensive yards on the season. But just like every other team that overlooked the best offensive and defensive line in the league.., the Warriors ground them into the very soil they were standing on, and held the Knights rushing game to under 40 yards in the game.
The Del Norte offense then ran for 232 yards behind junior running back #21 Levi Cox Cooley’s 163 yards on the day as the Warriors ran for 3 touchdowns in their 21-14 win in Sunnyvale just a week ago.
No less than twenty-four hours later, Del Norte High School faced their first CIF championship battle when the California Interscholastic Federation announced that the location of the California Interscholastic Federation Division 5-AA State Championship game scheduled to be played at Del Norte High School was still “to be determined”.
An alternate time and location was considered at Humboldt State University in Eureka with the game being played in the afternoon before St. Bernard’s of Eureka plays their Division 6-AA Championship game that same Saturday evening after concerns ranging from field conditions, weather, accommodations and security swirled.
The Del Norte Unified School district spent early parts of the week assuring the CIF that not only was community prepared, but this group of young men had EARNED their homefield advantage and that they and the community deserved to fully experience this event.
The CIF officially announced Wednesday that the California Interscholastic Federation Division 5-AA State Championship game will be played at Del Norte High School this Saturday, December 14th at 6:00pm.
Online pre-sale tickets for the Saturday evening game were sold out by Wednesday afternoon.
The ticket booth at the field will start selling tickets Saturday afternoon at 4:00pm, however, the gate will not open until 5:00pm.
With all of this uncertainty swirling around them, the Warriors and Lions football teams still had work to do before the 14-0 El Monte Lions roll into town to lay their claim to the State Championship.
The El Monte Lions were sent off on their 13 hour journey to Arcata (where they will be staying) after a visit by their State Senator Susan Rubio. An El Monte GoFundMe page posted on the El Monte High School page raised over $11,000 since Monday for “travel expenses and championship rings”.
A classic battle is in store for football fans at any level.
A confident El Monte team comes to town featuring a double-wing offense, the state rushing leader Davon Booth with 2,722 yards and 32 touchdowns in his wake, and an offense that leads the state in team rushing yards with 5,335 yards on the season all packed on their team bus.
But that is what the Warriors have heard all year long, and they have continued to go to work shutting down running stars and running games by destroying offensive lines and then turning around and pulverizing opposing defensive lines to open running lanes for the OJ Calleja, Kobe Mitchell and Levi Cox Cooley trifecta to run right down their throats for 48 minutes.
On Saturday evening at 6:00pm, two of the best football teams in the State of California will meet in Crescent City in the ultimate North vs. South contest.
One team with a record setting offense and running back will face off with a team defense that has been designed to stop the run, and an offense that has run at will on its opponents all year long.
Both teams will represent their communities as they stand at the peak of the same CIF 5-AA State Championship mountain.., where there is only room for one at the top. This is it.
Good Luck Warriors !
