A referee tosses a coin at the start of the De La Salle vs. Serra game at De La Salle High School in Concord, Calif., on Friday, Sept. 2, 2016. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)
The showdown Friday night between high school football giants De La Salle and Serra was probably a tougher ticket than any other Bay Area sporting event in months.
For those not fortunate enough to have a ticket to the game in Concord, there’s still a great opportunity to watch the action. The 8 p.m. game between the Bay Area’s top ranked teams will be nationally televised game on ESPNU.
This will be the first meeting between De La Salle (1-0) and Serra (1-0 in six years. Both coaches Justin Alumbaugh of the Spartans and Patrick Walsh of the Padres are great friends and former star players at De La Sale.
“Patrick and I actually joked about it,” said Alumbaugh, whose Spartans are 10-0 lifetime against ex-De La Salle star Walsh. “It’s not good for either one of our health. We pull for him every week and he pulls for us every week, except for this Friday night.”
This will be Serra’s second consecutive road game against a heavyweight team.
“I have no one to blame but myself,” coach Patrick Walsh said about the back-to-back road games against Folsom and DLS to open the 2022 season. “I take full accountability for what’s happening to our team.”
ESPN cameras aside, for an early September matchup, the stakes were already going to be enormous. Consider:
– De La Salle is No. 1 in the Bay Area News Group rankings; Serra is No. 2.
– Serra just won its season opener on the road against Folsom, another NorCal heavyweight that ended De La Salle’s season last season.
– De La Salle had to play Folsom in the regionals last year because Serra – not DLS – was picked by the California Interscholastic Federation to represent NorCal in the Open Division state championship game.
For Friday night’s De La Salle-Serra game story, as well as the Bay Area high school football scoreboard, go to https://www.mercurynews.com/sports/high-school-sports/ or https://www.eastbaytimes.com/sports/high-school-sports/.
Originally published at Jon Becker, Darren Sabedra