Miramonte High quarterback Lane Dalton (17) passes in the second quarter of their NCS Division IV football game against Hayward High at Moreau Catholic High school in Hayward, Calif., on Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)
Miramonte was riding a nice wave of momentum heading into its 5-A NorCal regional championship game at Calaveras.
Lane Dalton had stepped up from the JV team for injured quarterback Carson Blair and led the Matadors to three wins and a North Coast Section title.
But 40 seconds into the regional Saturday night, Dalton badly injured a hamstring on a run along the sideline. The sophomore stayed down for several minutes and was taken off the field in a golf cart.
Freshman Gus Millstone took over and finished the opening series with a short touchdown pass to David Roman. From there, it was all Calaveras as the home team overpowered Miramonte to capture the title with a 35-7 victory.
Calaveras (12-2) will play Bishop Union for the 5-A state championship next weekend in South California.
Miramonte finished 8-6.
When it was over, Miramonte coach Nick Safir spoke highly of Millstone, whose high school career had consisted of 10 games of freshmen football.
“He did everything we asked of him,” Safir said. “It’s just a really tough spot to put that kid in. I think if we have Lane, we probably play a little better on defense. It was kind of just a domino effect at that point.”
Tied 7-7, Miramonte threatened to take the lead early in the second quarter when it marched inside the 10-yard line. But an interception in the end zone gave Calaveras the ball at its 4.
The Red Hawks then drove 96 yards behind its smash-mouth ground attack, the drive ending when the 6-foot-1, 235-pound Enrique Hernandez plowed in from the 1 to make it 14-7.
The big guy was tough to bring down all night. His two third-quarter touchdowns, both on short runs, widened the advantage to 28-7.
“Yeah, he’s big,” Safir said. “He’s listed at 230 and he’s every bit of that. I thought we had a good game plan on defense. We had guys who were there. We couldn’t make tackles on that guy. He ran real hard.”
Owen Shahan added a 5-yard touchdown run on a sweep early in the fourth quarter to extend the margin to 35-7.
For Miramonte, a season that could have been derailed when Blair and the team’s defensive captain, Justin Jalowiec, went down with injuries just before the playoffs stretched into December. It included a benchmark league win over Las Lomas and a come-from-behind win last week over Hayward in the North Coast Section Division IV final.
But it ended two victories short of the ultimate prize.
“I can’t be prouder of these guys,” Safir said. “I told our seniors tonight that they’re the foundation of what the future is going to be in this program. They got it done. We had a ton of adversity. We had four kids who were going to be seniors quit. We had six kids who were going to be juniors quit in the offseason. I had two kids quit during the season.
“We lost our MVP starting quarterback. We lost our defensive captain in the same game for the season. We were picked to not win a league game by everybody. We were picked to lose to Hayward by everybody, and we just refused to accept that that was going to be the narrative of our season.”
Originally published at Darren Sabedra