THE STREAK ENDS – St. Francis Beat De La Salle

“The Streak” ended Friday night at Ron Calcagno Stadium when the St. Francis Lancers took down the mighty De La Salle Spartans. It’s weird to say but for the first time in 30 years, De La Salle is on the losing end of a football game against a NorCal opponent. To a regular, uninformed football fan, the game would just be one of those thriller kinds of a win by a good team over another good team. It wasn’t a perfect game for sure but it was a great game nonetheless.

Senior Nicolas Andrighetto made the game-clinching TD catch with 22 seconds left on the clock.

“I believe that we can do it,” Andrighetto told our producer the night before the game. “Just need to be disciplined.”

It was definitely a team win for the St. Francis Lancers with contributions from every single player and coach that led up to the win. The last time De La Salle lost to a team north of Bakersfield was in 1991 against Pittsburg and ever since then, only two teams have come close. Bellarmine nearly beat the Spartans in 2011 in a three-overtime final. Serra also came close in 2013. And perhaps the closest ones were Palma and Clayton Valley Charter who tied De La Salle in 2004, the same season after the Spartans’ 151 win streak was broken by Bellevue of Washington earlier that fall.

As for St. Francis, they just put the WCAL on top of all other leagues in NorCal. And it will be interesting how all the “rankings” and “polls” will be this coming week. Every team can have a bad game, but not De La Salle.  They were not supposed to lose. St. Francis came out ready to play. They played every single down as if it were their last and now they are in the history books as the team that finally end a 30-year-old streak.