They watched the game in the theater. Now Del Oro is ready for Central Catholic
Del Oro players were cheering on Friday night watching a football game.
The only thing was they weren’t cheering on their teammates.
Del Oro already had advanced to the title game after Jesuit forfeited due to playing an ineligible player in its first two playoff matchups.
Golden Eagles coaches and players were in the school’s theater watching Central Catholic beat Inderkum 31-30 in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division II semifinals.
“The coaches probably had the notebooks out a little more than the kids but I will tell you what, it was exciting,” Del Oro coach Jeff Walters said at the ninth annual CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Championship Breakfast on Monday. “Our kids were cheering and when it came down to the two-point conversion, it was weird because half the crowd was rooting for Central and half was rooting for Inderkum and we were really jazzed up.”
Walters called Friday’s experience of having a semifinal bye, “awkward.”
“I don’t know that we will ever get an opportunity to do it again but it was definitely advantageous and we really enjoyed it,” Walters said.
Both Central Catholic (11-1) and Del Oro (11-1) are familiar with each other as the Golden Eagles beat the Raiders, 23-12, in the semifinals last year.
The top two seeds in the division will face off for a section title on Saturday at 2 p.m. at Sacramento State.
“They (Central Catholic) are fast and they are explosive,” Walters said. “In reality, it could be 1A vs. 1B as far as I am concerned because Coach (Roger) Canepa and the coaches over there are amazing.”
The Golden Eagles finished second in the Sierra Foothill League behind Folsom (11-1) and are led by a trio of senior linebackers who have combined for 48 tackles for a loss. Tatuo Martinson leads the team with 17 TFLs while Charlie Rogers has 16 and Carson Westlake has 15.
With two weeks off, one because of smoke-related postponement of the semifinals and later the Jesuit forfeit, the Golden Eagles still took the field last week to practice. Walters, however, said it was only for an hour a day.
“It was high intensity,” he said. “We went really fast and tried to simulate game speed as much as possible and did a lot of scrimmaging and situational stuff. It’s hard to prepare because we had to prepare for both Inderkum and Central Catholic.”
Now, the Golden Eagles know their opponent and will take the field for the first time in 22 days on Saturday.
“As soon as the clock hit zero (in Central Catholic game),” he said, “it was weird because there was almost a hush from all our players because they knew that (Central Catholic) was our opponent and it was time to start preparing.”
This story was originally published November 27, 2018 at 4:33 PM with the headline "They watched the game in the theater. Now Del Oro is ready for Central Catholic."