De La Salle Loses!

[BigSneaky]

Saturday, September 4, 2004

Updated: September 5, 5:06 AM ET

 

ESPN.com news services

 

SEATTLE -- One hundred fifty-one football games.

 

De La Salle High School's 39-20 loss to Bellevue (Wash.) ended the Spartans' record winning streak Saturday night in front of 24,987 people at Qwest Field.

 

Senior J.R. Hasty led the Wolverines, rushing for 271 yards and scoring four touchdowns. Bellevue also got a 37-yard touchdown run by sophomore quarterback Eric Block.

 

The Spartans -- from Concord, Calif., a suburban community east of San Francisco -- had not lost since Dec. 7, 1991.

 

Their average victory during the 12-season undefeated streak was by 38.2 points, and 43 of their 151 wins were shutouts. De La Salle also was crowned with five USA Today national championships during the span.

 

The Spartans broke the nation's previous longest winning streak at 72 games in 1997, going on to more than double it.

 

De La Salle coach Bob Ladouceur, who now has a 287-15-1 record in 26 years at the 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."

 

De La Salle got off to a solid start, moving the ball down the field 83 yards to score with relative ease.

 

After the kickoff, Hasty, a Bellevue senior, took his first offensive touch 74 yards for a touchdown. The motivated Wolverines dominated the rest of the night on the ground.

 

"There were all the Internet polls, the message boards where everyone said they were going to blow us out," said Bellevue linebacker E.J. Savannah, who led his defense with nine tackles.

 

Bellevue head coach Butch Goncharoff, who took over the program five years ago and is the first coach in Washington history to win three straight large-school state titles, challenged his team to worker harder leading up to the game.

 

"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."

 

With 14-year-old Block making his first high school start at quarterback, Bellevue didn't attempt a pass, rushing 54 times for 463 yards.

 

The Spartans did not score the second half. Bellevue twice intercepted passes by senior quarterback Kevin Lopina, who has a scholarship to Oregon State.

 

Lopina completed 11 of 22 passes for 103 yards.

 

Eduardo Lopez led De La Salle with 154 rushing yards, including touchdown runs of 54 and 44 yards.

 

Bellevue led 30-20 at halftime and broke the game open on the 2-yard scoring run by Hasty with 8:35 remaining in the third quarter.

 

The Spartans' program at the private, all-boys school has inspired two books, a documentary and national telecasts of games. Last month, Sports Illustrated printed a seven-page spread about the team.

 

The team has regularly played the top competition from California and around the country.

 

Bay Area papers had speculated whether the Spartans could escape this season unscathed. In addition to Bellevue, the team has games scheduled against strong California teams Mission Viejo, Clovis West and Palma.

 

De La Salle graduated 17 starters from last season's 13-0 squad, which was one of the best in the school's history.

 

Ladouceur said it was just time for De La Salle to finally lose a game.

 

"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 suffered off-the-field heartache Aug. 12. Linebacker Terrence Kelly was shot to death in Richmond, a crime-ridden city 20 miles east of De La Salle's campus, just before he was to leave for the University of Oregon, where he had a full football scholarship.

 

Former Spartans now in the NFL include Giants wide receiver Amani Toomer, Broncos 2004 first-round draft pick D.J. Williams, Lions guard David Loverne and Jets kicker Doug Brien.

 

UCLA spark-plug running back Maurice Drew also starred at De La Salle, and Michigan starting quarterback Matt Gutierrez was a Spartan.

[64TNChamp]

*&%$#

[OnlineLC]

I watched De La Salle last year when they showed a game vs Evangel Christian on ESPN 2. The discipline of the team was incredible even though the line was considerably smaller.

 

I have mixed emotions on this loss. In one sense you don't ever want to see a team dominate everything; in another I would like to see the streak continue. I somehow doubt that this record will ever be broken again in our lifetime.

[REBELRON]

Bellview must be one heck of a team. Congratulations to Bellview. Congratulations to De La Salle on the streak.

[falconfan94]

De La Salle in Concord, California lost this weekend for the first time since December 7, 1991. They lost to Bellevue High from Washington 39-20 in front of 24,987 people. Their average victory over this winning streak has been by 38.2 points.

[wingman10]

De La Salle in Concord, California lost this weekend for the first time since December 7, 1991. They lost to Bellevue High from Washington 39-20 in front of 24,987 people. Their average victory over this winning streak has been by 38.2 points.

825328521[/snapback]

I think the game was played in Washington. De La Salle has a very tough schedule and doesn't have the talent as in the past. Look for a couple more losses in 04.

[ooooo]

Looks like it's time to start another streak. The streak before the last loss was like 80 games. This is their first regular season loss in a long time. If I am correct their regular season streak is longer than their unbeaten.

[sportsman]

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/news/story?id=1875067

[ORPlaYa429]

wow, congrats to anyone who could ever do that

[TigersBball42]

Yeah really congradulations but that has to be a bummer

[NWTennSports]

Bellevue is a very good team -- 3A Wash. state champs last year. .... If you look at DLS's schedule this year and take into consideration all their graduation losses, this great program could lose as many as three or four games this season. I know the folks in Long Beach Poly are just itching to get at DLS, although they're probably bummed that they won' be breaking The Streak. .... BTW, I have both book written on the DLS program, and what they do out there is pretty darned amazing. ..... 151 in a row. WOW ..... Ending that streak. An even bigge WOW.

[um2020]

De La Salle lost an awful lot of talent last year and it was just a matter of time before they lost. The amazing thing is last year when they played Evangel Christian it was noted that Evangel's D- line avg. 285 and De La Salle's O-Line avg. 218 and De La Salle blew them off the ball all night long. Bellevue is the 3 time defending state champs in the largest classification in Wash., so they have a good team. De La Salle, to thier credit never ducked anyone, they played some of the best teams in the country every year. Sorry to see them lose.