De La Salle High ended the dreams of the James Logan High of being the first team from Northern California in more than 20 years to beat the national powerhouse high school football team the way the Spartans have done so many times before.
De La Salle took the Colts apart slowly but surely and with stone-cold efficiency in a blowing mist and wind on Saturday night at Dublin High.
The Spartans (13-0) rolled to a 52-7 victory in the North Coast Section Division I championship game.
The Spartans now advance to a Northern California playoff game next week with hopes of advancing to the state championship game against the winner of the Southern California playoffs.
“It’s De La Salle, you have to play at near perfection,” said Logan head coach George Zuber. “We didn’t do that. They were the better team.”
Noting that no team has run consistently on the Spartans all season, Zuber and his staff had a passing attack planned, but “this mess (rain) was not the best scenario. But I’m not making excuses. They did better than we did.”
The conditions, however, did not prevent De La Salle from proving it could pass on Logan. The Spartans in recent games have been run-dominated on offense with quarterback Chris Williams passing sparingly.
But Saturday night, Williams connected on 9 of 12 passes for 150 yards and four touchdowns with Andrew Buckley his favorite target. Buckley caught all four of Williams’ second-half pass attempts for 71 yards, including a 37-yard touchdown, after grabbing two passes in the first half, including a 44-yard touchdown bomb.
In all, Buckley had six grabs for 122 yards.
For a while in the second quarter, Logan (12-2) showed signs of making a game of it. After De La Salle had taken a 14-0 lead, the Spartans appeared about to go up three touchdowns when Williams fumbled at the end of a run at the Colts 5 and Ryan Bua recovered the loose ball and returned it to the 8.
Three plays later Logan was in dire straits on third-and-15 at the 3, when quarterback Jeffrey Prothro rolled to the right in his end zone and threw a rope to Kavion Augustine for 47 yards to midfield.
A personal foul penalty against Logan moved ball back to the 35, but the Colts were out of a hole, and then Prothro found Warren Miles Long for 21 more yards, and then Long, Logan’s workhorse running back, two plays later got loose for 38 yards to score what would be the Colts’ lone touchdown.
It was 14-7 and a game, but then De La Salle resumed its methodical dismantling of the Colts.
In all, Logan was guilty of six turnovers. Prothro was picked off three times, one of which DLS’ Victor Egu returned 10 yards for a touchdown that made it 35-7 in the third quarter.
Long, though, wound up having a decent game, gaining 107 yards on 17 carries, but on the opening possession of the third quarter, he tried to stretch for a first down on a third-down play, fumbled, and De La Salle recovered at the Colts 30.
“De La Salle is a great team,” Prothro said afterward. “Everything we expected… They were very disciplined and had a great game plan.”
Prothro said the weather affected the Colts’ offense a little. “We dealt with the situation, but they (the Spartans) just played a great game.”
Tiapepe Vitale led DLS rushers with 89 yards on 21 carries and a touchdown while Das Tautalatasi picked up 57 yards on 12 carries, 47 in the first half.
Despite the lopsided final loss, Prothro said the Colts had much to be proud of.
“This is the farthest we made it,” Prothro said. “We have a lot to be proud of.”
