Prep football: Tiny Esparto topples Union Mine as Spartans continue their turnaround

Esparto’s Silas Umbay was a popular guy Friday night. That will happen when you’re a senior with a couple of touchdown runs and an interception in a 28-13 playoff win over Union Mine.

As Umbay hugged half the town of 3,100 people – Grandma had to give him a kiss on the cheek before he talked to a reporter – Umbay’s brother showed up with a white gift box. Go ahead, open it.

Umbay’s eyes bulged as he opened the box and pulled out a necklace with his No. 21 emblazoned in the center. His brother, Seth Lowell wore the same number when he played for the Spartans five years ago. Brothers being brothers, he joked he wasn’t going to give Umbay the necklace if they lost to the Diamondbacks.

Jokes aside, Esparto’s football team has become a serious topic in the small farm community. The Spartans have gone from a doormat to a physical, well-coached machine in just two years since coach Chris Carr took over.

“The buzz on campus was football team sucks,” Carr said. “We saw people saying, ‘We’re not going to be any good because they’d had two wins a year for the last four years. For the coaches, it was just about guys, you guys can be great. You have to believe in it.”

The vibe has changed. Esparto is 9-3 after Friday’s win and now faces top-seeded Summerville in the Division VI quarterfinals.

“And it starts with the kids,” Carr said.

Technically, it started with the coaches. Carr is quick to deflect credit for the turnaround. Defensive coaches Jeff Lopez and John Centers have led the revival, Carr said. And offensive coordinator Ron Cristian brings wisdom and execution.

Funny thing is, Carr didn’t arrive with these guys in tow. Carr, a history teacher at the high school, had to make a Facebook post on a community page asking if anybody could help coach the football team. Next thing he knew, he was on the phone with Cristian, a longtime assistant at Foothill who had recently retired in the Esparto area. Cristian was busy, he told Carr, and wasn’t sure he wanted to be involved. He’d just come out to watch a practice.

“And within a week, he was like, full-time, ready to go,” Carr said.

The sage coaching shows up in the way the Spartans played against Union Mine. Despite being a school of about 270 students playing a school of about 1,100, the Spartans shoved their way down the field on the opening drive, taking 11 plays to go 72 yards. In the first half, Esparto’s Guillermo Aviña had 92 rushing yards, Umbay had 43 yards and two touchdowns, and Antonio Seastrunk Jr. plowed up the middle for 27. Combined, the trio had 30 rushes in the first half while building a 21-7 halftime lead.

But Union Mine wasn’t out of it. With a sideline coach wearing a hat that said “run the damn ball,” the Diamondbacks engineered a 10-play, 43-yard drive to cut the lead to 21-13 in the middle of the third quarter. Then the Union Mine defense twice held Esparto to three-and-outs as the Diamondbacks threatened to tie the game.

Stalwart Union Mine linebacker Andrew Duran had a lot to do with that defensive success. The senior plugged the middle and forced Esparto to run the ball away from him. But the young Diamondbacks just couldn’t figure out how to get past that pesky Esparto defense.

“I thought we were in the game the whole time,” said coach Kirk Anderson. “It’s just really a one-possession game the majority of the time, and when you’re in those when you’re in those types of games, you obviously need some breaks to kind of go your way and that didn’t happen tonight, but we won’t hang our heads. We battled through a lot of adversity this year with our group and these guys learned a lot.”

On the Esparto side, the teaching work done by the coaching staff was obvious on defense. As soon as a Union Mine player was met, Esparto players started swatting at the football. As more tacklers arrived, they all started hammering at the ball. As a result, Union Mine had three fumbles lost and the ball hit the ground a few more times.

“We’ve got the underdog mentality,” Seastrunk said. “And so we try to do that every week, just hit and go. … There’s a whole wave of us.”

But it was Esparto’s pass defense that also had a star turn. Near the end of the second quarter, Esparto’s Luke Simpson hit Union Mine quarterback Cody Quijada near the goal line. The ball popped out and Seastrunk recovered it for a touchdown.

With Esparto leading 21-13 in the fourth quarter and Union Mine driving to the Esparto 26-yard line, Diego Perez hauled in an errant pass to give the Spartans the ball back. Then Aviña caught Union Mine by surprise, coming across the line of scrimmage on a counter run and streaking untouched for a 28-13 lead with 5:28 to go. Umbay hauled in another Esparto interception on the ensuing drive to effectively end any Union Mine hopes of a comeback.

How will the Spartans fare against top-seeded Summerville next week? Believe it or not, Umbay said the defense needs to get even better.

“So our defense is pretty good. We can do a little better,” he said. “You know, everyone makes mistakes, but it’s got to play perfect next week.”

While the town would be thrilled with a deep playoff run, there are a couple people probably not that excited: the soccer and basketball coaches. With winter practices started, the basketball team has two or three players working on drills. The soccer team has eight or nine guys. Everybody’s playing football right now. Times have changed.