De La Salle marches on to win Open Division championship

It’s only fitting that at the end of California’s longest high school football season, the most successful program in state history is the last one standing.

Demonstrating the power and precision that has been its trademark for over three decades, Concord De La Salle proved it is still the best in California by winning its fourth consecutive CIF state championship Open Division bowl game with a 48-28-victory over Corona Centennial Saturday night at Home Depot Center in Carson.

The Spartans (15-0) capitalized on several Centennial miscues to build a 28-7 halftime lead. De La Salle has a 5-2 mark in seven bowl championship appearances -- the most by any school -- and extended its state-best winning streak to 25 games. Coach Bob Ladouceur, who said before the game he was considering retirement after this year or next, improved to 399-25-3. He is now 2-1 head-to-head against Centennial Coach Matt Logan, who dropped to 1-3 in state bowl games.

“Maybe... I’m going to decide after the holidays,” Ladouceur said when asked if he would return for his 35th season in 2013. “Right now, I’m just going to enjoy this one.”

Centennial broke the school single-season yardage record the week before in its regional bowl victory over Harbor City Narbonne and finished with 8,560 yards, but the Huskies (14-2) fumbled five times in the first half, losing two of them, and were limited to 137 yards in the first 24 minutes against a De La Salle defense that was allowing an average of 11 points per game. The Huskies’ lone bright spot in the first half was Austin Renken’s one-yard run that ended an 11-play, 80-yard drive with 36 seconds left in the second quarter.

“I’m proud of our defense because no one’s stopped Centennial all year,” said Ladouceur, whose team held the Huskies to their lowest point total of the season. “They are hard to prepare for. They can take four plays and be in the end zone, so you’re always holding your breath. I have a lot of respect for that team.”

After bobbling a snap, Centennial punter Rigo Luna was tackled at the Huskies’ 19-yard line and De La Salle needed three plays to take a 7-0 lead on Tiapepe Vitale’s two-yard run. His one-yard plunge capped a nine-play, 61-yard drive that gave De La Salle a 14-0 lead late in the first quarter and he added a 46-yard run to make it 21-0 early in the second quarter. A muffed punt gave the Spartans the ball at the Centennial 27 and they scored seven plays later on Chris Williams’ three-yard run for a 28-0 lead.

Centennial, which was looking to beat an undefeated opponent for the fourth week in a row, narrowed its deficit to 28-14 on Robert Webber’s 63-yard touchdown pass to Chase Krivashei early in the third quarter.

On the Huskies’ next drive, however, Krivashei was stripped and Williams threw to a wide open Austin Lonestar for a 38-yard touchdown that gave De La Salle a 35-14 lead. Webber completed 19 of 43 passes for 308 yards and three touchdowns.

On fourth-and-goal from the eight-yard line, Webber hit Ryan Pascarella in the corner of the end zone to pull Centennial within 35-21 with 4:30 left in the third quarter. Krivashei had six receptions for 133 yards and Pascarella added four catches for 50 yards.

“We were good enough to win, we just needed to execute better,” said Huskies receiver Barry Ware, who caught eight passes for 103 yards, including a five-yard touchdown from Webber that pulled Centennial to within 42-28 with 8:46 left. “We knew we could come back because we’ve been coming back all year. We had to get a stop and we didn’t make a couple of plays on fourth down when we needed it.”

Vitale finished with 143 yards and put the game away on a two-yard run with 47 seconds left.

De La Salle outscored Centennial, 37-31, in the Division I game in 2007 and the Huskies returned the favor the next year with a 21-16 victory -- the Spartans’ last loss to a California school. Palo Alto upset Centennial in 2010 in the Division I game.

“The last two times we played those guys, we couldn’t move the ball on them,” Ladouceur said. “So hats off to our offense for making some plays and giving our defense more time to rest.”