Vintage’s season comes to an end after loss to San Ramon Valley in section semifinals
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
DANVILLE-It just wasn’t meant to be.
After a marvelous season the journey ended with a 14-3 defeat at the hands of San Ramon Valley.
“I wouldn’t describe it as a Cinderella,” Vintage coach Dylan leach said afterwards. “It’s too much work that these kids have put in to sit here and say that this was a fluke or some type of Cinderella story. I think these kids deserve everything they’ve gotten. They worked their butts off in the weight room and they worked their butts off on the practice field and the coaching staff works their butts off, so it would be Cinderella if we’re not back here on a normal basis. But I have a feeling the Crushers are here to stay, and I have a feeling that we’ll just continue this roll and hopefully be in these situations again.”
“We knew coming into this that they were going to be a tough team. They’re almost a mirror image of us, they’re a good weight room team, they’re strong, disciplined, and we just came up short tonight,” Vintage senior DB/QB/RB/WR said after the final game of his football career at Vintage.
A five-yard touchdown run by Noah Thomas with 1:58 left in the game sealed the deal for San Ramon Valley to head to next weeks CIF North Coast Section Div. 1 title game where they’ll face Freedom-Oakley.
The Crushers (10-3) won the turnover battle on the night, but were ultimately unable to capitalize on the Wolves mistakes.
“That’s always going to hurt,” Leach reminisced on his teams missed chances. “You ask for takeaways and you get them and then when you can’t move the ball on a repeated basis, or you do. You saw in the second quarter we were driving freely and then we get the personal foul, so I thought honestly that was the momentum changer in the game. I mean it’s 7-3 we’re taking six yards a chunk and then you put us in 3rd-and-17 and we don’t have a play for that.”
To begin the game with a Mauricio Castro kick return that saw the Vintage set up shop on the San Ramon Valley side of the field. Ultimately though the Wolves (8-4) would hold Vintage to their only score of the game with 6:53 left in the first quarter.
The only other score came when Thomas scored from 12 yards out on a pass from Brandon Cammisa.
The Vintage offense was stymied on the night and it showed in their rushing game as Viliami Schaumkel ended the night with 41 yards on 13 carries. The largest rush the Crushers had all night was a 32-yard rush by Castro.
“I think they eliminated us offensively,” Leach said of the SRV defense. “Up front they beat us up and defensively I think we played well. Obviously they didn’t score that last touchdown till the very end, and normally I would say if we held a team to 14 points we’re going to win that. But I think they did that. We hurt ourselves with a couple bad penalties and we fumbled the ball I believe five times – we got them all back, but we haven’t fumbled the ball since we zero – not once. So that hurts us right there.”
The future looks very bright for the program going forward after the JV and Freshman teams had very successful seasons.
