Serra Blanks De La Salle

The Padres handed the Spartans their first shutout loss since 2005.

After going 30 years without losing to a team from north of Fresno, Saturday marked De La Salle’s fourth loss to a Northern California opponent in the last three seasons.

Unlike the prior three such losses, this wasn’t a nailbiter that came down to the final seconds that the Spartans easily could have won.

Simply put, Serra’s 28-0 victory was one of epic proportions.

Yes, the final score is a bit misleading. The Padres only led 8-0 after three quarters and 15-0 until the final six minutes. But they were clearly the better team all day, letting De La Salle (0-2) breach the red zone just one time in an authoritative defensive effort.

“That’s an outstanding Serra defense, there’s no doubt about it,” Spartans head coach Justin Alumbaugh said. “They’re hard to get out of position, and if one guy gets out of position, another guy shows up. They’re hitters.”

While it was a collective team effort on defense for Serra (2-0), Jermaine Barrett delivered the finishing touches with a pair of fourth-quarter interceptions, including a 66-yard pick-six with 2:07 left for the final margin. Barrett had spent his freshman year at De La Salle before moving to San Mateo.

Offensively, 6-foot-6 tight end Cole Harrison was the undisputed star for the Padres, hauling in seven catches for 123 yards, including a 4-yard touchdown on a pop pass from Maealiuaki Smith with 1:09 left in the first half. His receiving totals on the day nearly doubled his entire output for the 2022 season, when he was mostly utilized as a blocker with Seamus Gilmartin, now at Harvard, ahead of him on the depth chart.

“He was a great mentor to me,” Harrison said of Gilmartin. “If I had any questions, I could ask him. Today kinda shows how much he helped me.”

Harrison was the top target for Smith, who completed 18 of his 27 attempts on the day for 235 yards a week after struggling in a win over Folsom.

“The sky’s the limit for him,” Serra head coach Patrick Walsh said of his 6-foot-4 quarterback prodigy. “Every recruiter says, ‘I want that machine in my garage,’ because he’s raw. Once it all clicks for him, you get things like this.”

That 4-yard touchdown to Harrison came at the end of a 16-play, 99-yard drive that nearly culminated in disaster before it even started when the Padres muffed a punt at their own goal line, only for Jaden Green to recover it to save the day.

“We showed a ton of resiliency,” Walsh said of the 99-yard drive. “As (former De La Salle coach Bob Ladouceur) said, ‘it’s remarkable what can happen if you put a little bit of belief into a teenage boy.’ It showed what kind of belief structure that group of kids has together.”

A 34-yard Harrison reception took Serra across midfield, and Jaden Lim, who opened the drive with an 8-yard reception to get the Padres out of the shadow of their own end zone, moved the sticks on fourth-and-8 with a 9-yard catch.

“We have guys out there,” Walsh said of his team’s receiving depth. “They have huge shoes to fill from last year, but we have height and we have speed. It’s really nice to see different kids fill in the jerseys with similar results, and I’m really pleased about that because having sustained success is really difficult.”

Lim caught five passes for 80 yards, while Braden Agosta hauled in four passes for 71. Agosta’s 47-yard reception on a deep ball over the middle to open the fourth quarter set up Jabari Mann’s 1-yard touchdown run to open up a 15-0 lead with 11:27 left.

Between the two scores came De La Salle’s best chance. An interception by sophomore Jaden Jefferson gave the Spartans possession at Serra’s 38 early in the third, and they entered the red zone for the only time on the day after Toa Faavae’s 14-yard scramble, but San Jose State commit Joseph Bey’s tight coverage on fourth-and-goal at the 3 forced a turnover on downs. Jefferson had a second interception later in the quarter, but the offense went three-and-out.

Collin Tahitua’s sack set up a 28-yard Thomas Gooch field goal to open up a three-score lead with 6:00 on the clock, and Gooch hit a 38-yarder to make it 21-0 after Barrett’s first interception.

“When we have to start throwing the ball, that doesn’t play to our strengths,” Alumbaugh explained.

Though De La Salle lost yardage on just two plays all afternoon, the Spartans also only had two plays go for double-digit yards, the 14-yard Faavae scramble in the third quarter and an 11-yard swing pass to Ant Dean on the opening drive after a 47-yard Johnathan Guerrero kick return. That first drive ended in a missed 44-yard field goal, and the visitors also missed a 47-yarder to close the first half after a pass interference penalty set up an untimed down.

In all, the Spartans mustered just 136 yards of total offense and were shut out for the first time since a 7-0 blanking by Clovis West on Sept. 7, 2005. The last Northern California team to shut the Spartans out was Salesian by a 32-0 score on Oct. 27, 1979.

It’s Serra’s first shutout victory since Nov. 20, 2021, though the Padres have come agonizingly close since then on multiple occasions. They allowed a single touchdown to eight opponents in 2022, with four of those scores coming in the fourth quarter, and they blanked Folsom until the final quarter last week.

“It’s a testament to the kids,” defensive coordinator Steven Monsef said. “It’s really hard to shut out really well-coached teams that execute. When you’re facing a system offense like De La Salle, your assignments and eye discipline are paramount. We worked on this offense in the spring and summer, and we were able to play fast today.”

Serra travels to Modesto next Saturday to round out nonleague play against Central Catholic (2-1). De La Salle will be back on the Peninsula next Friday for a trip to St. Francis (1-1).