Welcome back to Monday Morning Lights, our weekly feature that sheds more light on the high school football weekend and peeks ahead to the new week. If you haven’t already, please subscribe. Your contributions keep us going.
CAMPOLINDO: READY FOR ACALANES
Campolindo earned its best win of the season on Friday night, defeating Monte Vista 28-21 in comeback fashion.
But while the Cougars celebrated in the moment, their minds are already on this Friday’s rivalry game against Acalanes.
“That is the game of the season,” San Diego State-bound tight end/defensive end Crosby Kelly said. “They’re a fantastic team. They got threats all over the board. And, you know, it’s just gonna be a huge game.”
Both teams enter this week’s game undefeated and ranked inside the Top 10 of the Bay Area News Group’s rankings.
Last year, Acalanes beat Campolindo twice – once in Moraga and the other at the North Coast Section Division III finals at Las Lomas. The two losses have lingered in the minds of Campolindo’s players all offseason.
“Considering the history of last season … everything weighs on this game,” Kelly said. “I think how that game goes will depict how we do in the playoffs and how the rest of our season goes.”
This week’s game will be at Acalanes where Campolindo earned its last win over the Dons two years ago.
The Cougars know that if they want to get a win, they will have to do it in a hostile environment.
“We know Acalanes is going to come out and have a humongous crowd,” quarterback Reid Habas said. “We know they’re a good team. They’re going to come out and mix up some big plays. But we’re going to trust our coaches. We know we’re going to gameplan well for them and it’s going to be exciting.”
– Nathan Canilao
WASHINGTON-FREMONT: COACH TALKS SHARED FIELD
During this league season, Washington-Fremont will play only one true road game.
The Huskies have three road matchups on their league slate, but two of them are against fellow Fremont schools Irvington and Kennedy. All four Fremont high schools with football teams share Tak Fudenna Stadium, the district field located on Washington’s campus.
There are advantages to the light travel. But there are drawbacks to the unique setup as well.
“It’s tough, because you want to have your own field,” said Washington coach Fernando Sotelo. “You want to have your emblem on the football field. Even though we play here a lot, it doesn’t feel like home. It is what it is. Fremont is very academic, and they don’t want to spend a lot of money on each school having a football field.”
Sotelo argues that the Fremont Unified School District’s choice to have only one stadium for four schools sends the message that football is not valued as highly as it is at other schools.
“We should have freshman, JV and varsity, and we’ve had only JV and varsity for years. And that’s because they just don’t put any money into our programs,” he said. “We have to come up with all that money. So we try to fundraise as much as we can.”
Washington would love to have its own autonomous home field with an orange Husky paw right in the middle of the turf. But Sotelo isn’t holding his breath.
“It would be nice for the district to be like, ‘You know what? We’re going to do this for you guys,’” he said. “When you’re looking at Fremont, it’s not just a high academic area. It’s a very highly populated area with people that have money. And for them to do something like this, it’s uncalled for. They should really give every school their own football field and invest a little bit in their schools so that kids want to come here.
“It’s just unfortunate. There’s nothing to signify that this is our football field. There’s no Washington on the sideline, like most schools have. There’s no emblem in the middle of the field. It’s just a football field.”
—Christian Babcock
OAL CLASSIC: SMASHING SUCCESS
Oakland Athletic League commissioner Franky Navarro arrived at Laney College at 8 a.m. to set up what would be a day full of high school football.
After weeks of preparation, the celebration of OAL football did not disappoint.
On Saturday, the historic East Bay football league hosted its first annual OAL Classic. The showcase kicked off the start of the OAL season with all six teams playing at Laney College.
According to Navarro, over 1,000 people were in attendance throughout the day.
“It was a long day, but it was successful in bringing the community together and really shining light on the Oakland Unified School District schools,” Navarro said.
In the first game of the day, Oakland High blanked Skyline 48-0 behind five touchdown passes from quarterback Lenox Colvin. In a battle between East Oakland schools, Castlemont defeated Fremont-Oakland after building a 20-point halftime lead. In the showcase’s nightcap, Dominic Davis accounted for 204 yards of total offense to go along with two touchdowns to lead McClymonds to a 36-6 win over Oakland Tech.
– Nathan Canilao
MONTE VISTA: QUARTERBACK MAKING STRIDES
Six games into his first season as Monte Vista’s starting quarterback, Ian Ondricek is giving opposing defenses fits.
Despite losing Friday’s game to Campolindo, Ondricek, a University of San Diego commit, made the play of the night.
On third-and-goal from Campolindo’s 11-yard line, the senior couldn’t find anyone open as Campolindo’s vaunted defensive line closed in on him. He scrambled backwards several yards and looked likely to put his team out of field goal rangewith a sack.
But Ondricek spun out of harm’s way, juked multiple defenders and found a sliver of daylight near the left sideline before diving inside the pylon for a touchdown.
“We were showing some frustration chasing that quarterback around,” Campolindo coach Kevin Macey said. “In my 46 years of coaching, I’ve never seen a quarterback do something like that.”
Ondricek finished Friday’s game passing for a touchdownin addition to the long rushing score.
First-year Monte Vista coach Joe Wingert said he has been impressed with how his young quarterback is seeing the field.
“I think Ian’s been making better reads and he’s such a gamer – he just makes some really good plays,” Wingert said. “He plays really hard all the time. He’s electric with his feet and I love what he does.”
– Nathan Canilao
Hence then, the article about monday morning lights undefeated campolindo primed for top 10 rivalry showdown with unbeaten acalanes was published today ( ) and is available on mercury news ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Monday Morning Lights: Undefeated Campolindo primed for top-10 rivalry showdown with unbeaten Acalanes )
Also on site :
- Strava eyes IPO as Gen Z trades dating apps for running clubs
- US Housing Market Falling Into ‘Deflationary Vortex,’ Analyst Warns
- Maldives becomes the first country to achieve ‘triple elimination’ of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B