Looking back: Tight team camaraderie led 2015 Napa Indians to undefeated season, second straight league title
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Mike Blom
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Football is a great game, isn’t it? With no football going on in fall due to the change of seasons for the 2020-21 school year, we decided it’s time to look back at some great teams Napa has seen.
So, to begin our series we’re going to start with the 2015 Napa High Indians. This team was able to face adversity and overcome it many times during the season, which led them to finish with a 10-0 record at the end of the regular season.
With that, let’s take a deeper look at the season that it was.
A season filled with incredible moments
In a season full of magical moments, one of the brightest came in the first game. Following a commanding 54-21 win over Mongomery-Santa Rosa, then head coach Troy Mott became the winningest football coach in Napa High history. Mott ended his coaching career with an astounding 94-35 record, with 11-straight Big Game wins, and five Monticello Empire League titles.
“It was fun to celebrate that honor,” Mott explained. “To celebrate that honor with an amazing coaching staff that we had those last few years and then also with the kids because it ended up being an amazing football season. I can tell you at that time, me and the coaches had a pretty good idea that we were going to be pretty good that year. So, for it to happen that season with those players and those coaches made it extra special for me.”
Then, just a few weeks later the Indians faced the first of their two back-to-back gauntlets on the schedule. Both games were highlighted by spectacular defensive play to lock up victories.
“I think that was a huge stretch,” said two-way starter and captain Colton Forster. “I think we really came together as a team those two weeks and just decided that it didn’t matter what the situation was, we were going to fight till the very end. I think they were both seven-point games and I think that just continues to show how we grew.”
“We learned a lot about ourselves in those two games against two really good opponents,” Mott added.
On a brutally hot day in Turlock, Napa was able to come away with a thrilling 21-14 win over Pitman. The game was sealed for the visiting Indians when Cal Bard made a big interception on 4th and 7 with the Pride looking to tie up the game from the Napa eight-yard line.
After that, defending CIF Division III State champion Campolindo-Moraga came into Memorial Stadium. One again, Napa would win another game with a late defensive hold. Similar to the week before, the Indians had to make a late defensive stand when pinned up against their own end zone. It was deja vu all over again as Napa had to again make a late-game defensive stop from with Campolindo about to score at their eight-yard line. Just like they did in the previous game, they made a late defensive stand to clinch another 28-21 victory.
“For me as a coach, that was the best I ever coached,” Mott emphasized.
The win over Campolindo was the one that officially put the Indians on the map in the 2015 season, as it sent shockwaves all over Northern California. Napa vaulted up the rankings and never left.
Second straight Monticello Empire League title
For the second year in a row, Napa was the MEL champions when the regular-season came to an end. But the road to get to that point was far from easy.
While games against league foes Rodriguez and Armijo were their normal walkovers, the games right in the middle of the league schedule were anything but a given.
Those games were two consecutive trips to Vacaville to face Wood and then Vacaville High.
For the class of 2016 seniors on the team, the game with Wood was personal. When they were freshmen and JV, their only loss of each season came against the Wildcats from Wood.
“The defining moment was the win over Wood later in the year,” Mott explained. “I felt like for your guy’s class (2016), the win over Wood was a hurdle that you needed to get over having never beaten them as a class.”
“That’s my number one high school football game that I’ve ever played in,” said Parker Totty, who was a two-way starter that season. “Throughout all the years, that’s one where I can remember pretty much play-by-play (of) that game because that’s one that will always stick with me because we always got beat by them. That was one team that would break our perfect season, so it was a sweet, sweet victory.”
After winning the year before, a win in the game would match the series for their four-year careers. On top of all that, both teams entered the contest with an undefeated record, which meant the winner would be leaving with a leg up to win the league title.
However, this game wasn’t even close. The game was all tied at halftime, but after the first half, Napa showed they were the better team that night. That was due in large part to their conditioning done throughout the season. The Indians won the game 38-21.
“Our conditioning and our weight room by far,” Mott pointed out. “I know for a fact what their offseason looked like over there and they were a talented group of players. But they didn’t put in the time we did and I think that we grind it on them with the run game.”
In their second trip to Vacaville in as many weeks, this was the true test. No matter the year, Vacaville is always going to be tough. Even with that expected, no one saw the crazy ending coming in this one.
With four minutes to go, the Indians faced an eight-point deficit. On their next drive after a Vacaville score, they went on a 53-yard march that took eight plays. The Indians found the end zone on a nine-yard rushing touchdown by Nathan Toma, which was followed up by a successful two-point conversion that went from Bard to Sherman Forbes.
“It was obviously huge to get in there, but I thought it was all the O-line,” Toma said. “They did an amazing job, just the whole game, opening stuff up.”
“People don’t realize this, but that was a play that we drew up right there,” Mott said of the crucial two-point try to tie the game. “We didn’t have that in the playbook.
After a Vacaville punt on their next possession, Napa got the ball back with just 57 ticks remaining on the clock. Once again, the drive went 53 yards. The only difference is that Bard completed three straight passes for 53 yards. The game-winning play came when Bard connected with Alex Perez de Leon from 18 yards out in the corner of the end zone.
“Those last few final drives it was just a group effort,” Bard pointed out. “That was just a come-together moment for me and I think we grew as a team the most that game and it really showed at the end with the result.”
Just a few weeks later, Napa would beat crosstown rival Vintage 42-14 to lock up the MEL title.
An incredibly talented group
It was the perfect mix. The team was loaded with talent at pretty much every position on the field.
The thing that made this team even more special was the number of unsung heroes that showed up from game to game.
Guys like Erik Romero, Jesus Fragoza, Isaiah West, Issac Moody, and Forbes are some prime examples of this.
This also points to the program’s values that it was always about the name on the front than the name that wasn’t on the back. Because of this, the team was incredibly tight. It also helped that growing up this group played youth sports together and had been incredibly tight for a long time before high school came.
“I feel like the thing that sticks with me the most those years was the camaraderie we had,” said Alec Richmond, another two-way starter. “It’s really cool to win games and everything, but it’s really cool to be able to win alongside the people you’ve grown so close to.”
Since this team did this, there hasn’t been another team to be quite this tight. There also hasn’t been a team to have an undefeated regular season since either, which shows that they go hand-in-hand.
Another thing that helped was to have a very talented and knowledgable coaching staff that had everything covered. Together, it was truly the perfect mix.
JV team also went undefeated
It’s something that will be overlooked, but the junior varsity team also went undefeated during the 2015 season as well.
This pointed out the good work done program-wide by the coaching staff to have two of three levels going undefeated in the regular season.
The JV team was also missing a few guys who had been brought up to the varsity level as sophomores that season.
