Pinole Valley pounds the rock, stymies Justin-Siena’s offense to win CIF North Coast Section Division 6 title
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
The old saying goes that offense wins games and defense wins championships after all.
Well, we may have an objection to that. In Friday night’s CIF North Coast Section Division 6 title game, No. 4 seed Pinole Valley won the defensive slugfest to win their first title since 1979 over the No. 3 seed Braves, 7-0, in the game played at Napa Memorial Stadium.
The lone score of the game came with just 6:08 left in the third when Maddox Wu rolled right and found receiver Ellis Shamsid Deem on the sideline wide-open for a 39-yard touchdown score that would prove to be the difference. That gave the Spartans (8-4) the game’s momentum to where the game could be played on their terms the rest of the way. The crazy thing is that was the only time in the playoffs where the defense blinked.
“I think we were kind of lulled to sleep a little bit, and some eyes in the backfield,” Justin-Siena first-year head coach Tyler Streblow said of the game’s lone score. “That’s what happens. They have such a great running game and we were kind of reel there a little bit and I think we were expecting the run and they got us on one that was a great play call, great execution, great throw.”
The Braves (7-6) hung around and fought until the very end. However, they wouldn’t have even had that chance had they not been able to get a goal-line stand to end the first half. After Larry McDonald broke off a 75-yard that looked destined for the end zone, Josiyah Maddalone was able to take him down at the Braves 5. Then, the Spartans called a timeout before and got to the 1 on the next play. A false start ruined all momentum and the teams went to the break without a score. McDonald ran for 235 yards on 28 carries in the contest.
“He’s a great running back,” Streblow said of the challenge of taming McDonald who had led the Spartans’ rushing attack all season and has already eclipsed the 1,000-yard mark this year. “We just have to kind of wrap up. I think a couple times, I thought we did a pretty good job. He busted a few big ones, but that’s going to happen and we’re designing our defense to do some bend and don’t break stuff.”
Justin-Siena also won the turnover battle once again by forcing the Spartans to fumble twice in the game. The issue was that they couldn’t do anything with those possessions.
As for the offensive side of the ball, that was a different story for Justin-Siena. One of the reasons they had such a hard time moving the ball was the fact that their sophomore quarterback was under duress all night long and was sacked three times. He simply didn’t have time to get the football out to his receivers.
“They were bringing a lot of heat up front, or they were playing a 5-1 and they were covering up all our linemen, and they just winning their 1-on-1 matchups,” Streblow said as to what disrupted the offensive attack. “Again, some mental mistakes here or there. We ran the wrong route a couple of times. We get down in the red zone and we run the wrong play – quarterback and running back weren’t on the same page on a couple, just some miscommunication stuff.”
A byproduct of the pressure meant that there was no running game which is something that hadn’t been the case for a while. In the game, senior running back Roman Williams was swallowed up in the backfield many times and finished with 26 yards on 17 carries. It’s a vast change from last week when the senior had running lanes and ran for over 100 yards.
All of this led to Maddalone having a solid game in his final game in a Braves uniform. The senior wide receiver hauled in 7 receptions for 48 yards, most of which came in crossing routes over the middle to give him room to work after the catch.
“So the idea this week was they were going to play a lot of cover one we’re going to run a lot of shallow crossing routes,” Streblow explained of the plan to use Maddalone over the middle of the field. “He did an awesome job with that. They never quite figured it out. But they were coming up and making the tackle after 5, 10 yards, and for us to consistently go up and down the field, with that it was just really, really tough.”
This brings a great season to the end for Justin-Siena. After all, they got a tad bit late of a start this season with Streblow taking over in May. That being said, they will have a lot of pieces returning next year.
