De La Salle impresses in win over Cardinal Newman, except in one area

CONCORD – A handful of big plays on offense and special teams and a particularly stout effort on defense helped the De La Salle football team open its home schedule on a positive note.

Receiver Damari Dean caught first-half touchdown passes of 79 and 24 yards, and Duece Jones-Drew returned a punt 53 yards for another score early in the third quarter to help lead the Spartans to a 42-3 nonleague win over Cardinal Newman-Santa Rosa at Owen Owens Field on Friday.

Quarterback Jaxon Loftin threw both scoring strikes to Dean, with the 79-yard bomb coming on De La Salle’s sixth offensive play from scrimmage. He also capped the scoring with a 23-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter, as the Spartans (2-0) extended their unbeaten streak against North Coast Section teams to a ridiculous 285 games (284-0-1).

“That’s a really tough opponent,” Spartans coach Justin Alumbaugh said of Cardinal Newman, which was coming off a 23-17 overtime loss to Folsom, the state’s seventh-ranked team, per MaxPreps.com, last week.

“Obviously, they’ve got a lot of size. They’re well coached. Whenever you play a really good team, and you walk away with a 42-3 win, there’s far more positive than negative.”

Alumbaugh was particularly impressed with his defense, which held the Cardinals (0-2) to two first downs and nine yards passing in the first half.

The Spartans fumbled the ball deep in their own territory on their first drive, which later became a 45-yard field goal by senior Devon Taylor. But they repeatedly hurried Cardinal Newman junior quarterback L.T. Retamoza in the first half, sacking him twice.

The Spartans also forced two turnovers on downs and picked Retamoza off once in the second half.

Junior running back James Curoso rushed for 138 yards last week against Folsom and was Cardinal Newman’s biggest bright spot on Friday with 62 hard yards on 18 carries.

De La Salle wanted to clean up some things after its 35-25 win last week over Serra, the Bay Area’s third-ranked team.

“We really emphasized communication, not giving up any big plays,” Alumbaugh said. “Last week, 75% of Serra’s yards came on three plays. That’s a no-no. The good news is the rest of the team, for the rest of the game, we were playing pretty dang good defense, and we knew we had it in us.

“But we knew we had to shore up some things, and we did. Defensive staff did a great job, and I thought our kids played really hard.”

Still, the Spartans have some areas they want to address in advance of next Friday’s home game against St. Francis, which lost 19-17 to Del Oro-Loomis on a last-second field goal on Friday.

“Our offensive line was really bad tonight,” Alumbaugh said of the mostly experienced group. “We didn’t get anywhere near enough push up front. We were whiffing on the second-level linebackers. Disappointing. A lot of those guys are returners.”

Lofkin completed 13 of 16 passes for 204 yards, and Jones-Drew had 10 carries for 75 yards. Jamal Johnson-Lucas and Judah Pape also had touchdown runs in the Spartans’ win.