Dynasty
09-06-2004, 02:42 AM
A high school football team from Concord, CA lost for the first time in more than 12 seasons. That's a nice streak.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/football/2004-09-05-delasalle-loss_x.htm
De La Salle's 151-game win streak ends
SEATTLE (AP) — A California football team's 151-game winning streak, the nation's longest, ended Saturday when Bellevue High School beat the De La Salle High of Concord, Calif., 39-20 before a crowd of 24,987 at Qwest Field.
De La Salle had not lost a game since falling in the 1991 North Coast Section championship game Dec. 7, 1991, when the current seniors on the team were in kindergarten.
The De La Salle Spartans broke the nation's previous longest winning streak at 72 games in 1997, going on to more than double it.
Coach Bob Ladouceur, who now has a 287-15-1 record in a quarter century at the suburban San Francisco school, was gracious in defeat.
"The team we saw on film was not the team we played out there tonight," he said of the three-time defending state 3A championship Wolverines.
"Their coaching staff and players did a great job in every facet and gave us schemes we had never seen," he said. "We got beat by a better football team tonight. If we played them tomorrow, they'd beat us again."
Ladouceur said it was just time for De La Salle to finally lose.
"I'm all for there being a lot of king of the hills, not just one," he said. "Bellevue represented their state well."
De La Salle got off to a solid start by moving the ball down the field 83 yards to score with relative ease.
But Bellevue senior J.R. Hasty took the ensuing kickoff 74 yards to score.
The Wolverines were motivated.
"There were all the Internet polls, the message boards where everyone said they were going to blow us out," said linebacker E.J. Savannah, who led Bellevue's defense with nine tackles.
Bellevue coach Butch Goncharoff said his team was thoroughly prepared for the school's biggest game ever.
"This is a great feeling," he said. "We worked eight months for this. I don't think we were intimidated coming in and our kids executed. We've said the strength of this team is our offensive line and it was tonight. They spent more time, more hours than anybody. Even De La Salle."
The streak — the longest in perhaps any sport — created a near-cult following for Ladouceur. The program at the private, all-boys school has inspired two books, a documentary and national telecasts of games, and last month earned the Spartans a seven-page spread in Sports Illustrated.
The Spartans have often faced the top competition from California and around the country, drawing tens of thousands of fans to see if the streak will end. But De La Salle graduated 17 starters from the 13-0 squad from 2003.
The team also suffered off-the-field heartache recently. On Aug. 12, linebacker Terrence Kelly was shot to death in Richmond, 20 miles east of De La Salle's campus, just before he was to leave for the University of Oregon, where he had earned a full football scholarship.
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/preps/football/2004-09-05-delasalle-loss_x.htm
De La Salle's 151-game win streak ends
SEATTLE (AP) — A California football team's 151-game winning streak, the nation's longest, ended Saturday when Bellevue High School beat the De La Salle High of Concord, Calif., 39-20 before a crowd of 24,987 at Qwest Field.
De La Salle had not lost a game since falling in the 1991 North Coast Section championship game Dec. 7, 1991, when the current seniors on the team were in kindergarten.
The De La Salle Spartans broke the nation's previous longest winning streak at 72 games in 1997, going on to more than double it.
Coach Bob Ladouceur, who now has a 287-15-1 record in a quarter century at the suburban San Francisco school, was gracious in defeat.
"The team we saw on film was not the team we played out there tonight," he said of the three-time defending state 3A championship Wolverines.
"Their coaching staff and players did a great job in every facet and gave us schemes we had never seen," he said. "We got beat by a better football team tonight. If we played them tomorrow, they'd beat us again."
Ladouceur said it was just time for De La Salle to finally lose.
"I'm all for there being a lot of king of the hills, not just one," he said. "Bellevue represented their state well."
De La Salle got off to a solid start by moving the ball down the field 83 yards to score with relative ease.
But Bellevue senior J.R. Hasty took the ensuing kickoff 74 yards to score.
The Wolverines were motivated.
"There were all the Internet polls, the message boards where everyone said they were going to blow us out," said linebacker E.J. Savannah, who led Bellevue's defense with nine tackles.
Bellevue coach Butch Goncharoff said his team was thoroughly prepared for the school's biggest game ever.
"This is a great feeling," he said. "We worked eight months for this. I don't think we were intimidated coming in and our kids executed. We've said the strength of this team is our offensive line and it was tonight. They spent more time, more hours than anybody. Even De La Salle."
The streak — the longest in perhaps any sport — created a near-cult following for Ladouceur. The program at the private, all-boys school has inspired two books, a documentary and national telecasts of games, and last month earned the Spartans a seven-page spread in Sports Illustrated.
The Spartans have often faced the top competition from California and around the country, drawing tens of thousands of fans to see if the streak will end. But De La Salle graduated 17 starters from the 13-0 squad from 2003.
The team also suffered off-the-field heartache recently. On Aug. 12, linebacker Terrence Kelly was shot to death in Richmond, 20 miles east of De La Salle's campus, just before he was to leave for the University of Oregon, where he had earned a full football scholarship.