Athletics
Baseball
The De La Salle baseball team as of 2023 had won six straight North Coast Section (NCS) Championships, and five of the prior eight EBAL Championships. [7] It won the inaugural CIF Division 1 NorCal Championships in 2022, and again in 2023. [7] In 2015-16 it was 25-3 and was ranked second in the nation. [8]
In 2017-18 it was 26-4 and was ranked second in the nation. [8] As a sophomore in 2018 future San Francisco Giants pitcher Kyle Harrison was 9-1 with a 1.17 ERA. [9] He was named EBAL Pitcher of the Year, a 2018 MaxPreps National All-American, and Cal-Hi Sports All-State Underclass. [9] In 2018-19 it was 29-1 and was ranked second in the nation. [8] As a junior in 2019 Harrison was 10–0 with a 1.26 ERA for the Spartans, with 103 strikeouts in 61 innings, and also played first base. [9] [10]
Connor “Bear” Harrison, Kyle Harrison's younger brother, in May 2023 was named Cal-Hi Sports North Coast Section Baseball Player of the Year after batting .419 while playing catcher his junior year; he also played first base and pitched as a closer. [11] [12] In his senior season in 2023, Bear batted .404 and was named first team all-state and the Bay Area News Group Player of the Year. [13]
De La Salle High School holds the national record 151-game winning streak spanning from 1992 to 2004. The streak occurred under the leadership of Bob Ladouceur, who began coaching at the school in 1979. It ended when they were defeated on September 4, 2004, by Bellevue High School (Washington), outside Seattle. [14] De La Salle finished the 2007 football season 13–0 and as state champions. In 2009, De La Salle defeated Crenshaw 28–14 to win the state title again. In 2010, De La Salle defeated Servite, ranked #7 in the nation, 48–8, to win the state title game for a second straight year. De La Salle finished the season 14–0 and ranked #1 in the nation by MaxPreps. [15]
During the winning streak, De La Salle was named national champion in seven different years; once by ESPN (1994), five times by USA Today (1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003), and once by the National Sports News Service (1999). The Spartans have been named national champions by ESPNRISE.com (formerly Student Sports) six times, including four straight years (2000–03). [16] They have also been honored as the top team in California 19 times (1992, 1994–2003, 2007, 2009–2012, 2014–2015) and competed in 25 California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) North Coast Section (NCS) championship games with 23 victories (12 of which were attained during the 151-game winning streak). [16] For the 2008–2009 school year, De La Salle was ranked the 18th best high school football team in the country by USA Today, the 37th by ESPNRISE, the 19th by MaxPreps, and the 14th by Sports Illustrated . [17]
In somewhat recent years, the team has won the California Open Division State Championships six times (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015). They have appeared in the Open Division state title game every year from the founding of the division in 2008 until 2019. Prior, they had competed in Division I, where they were the 2007 State Champions and the 2006 and 2008 runner-up. They have won the North Coast Section championships every year since 1992, with the league's restructuring. From 1991 to 2021, they had a streak of 318 games without a loss when playing Northern California schools (going 316–0–2). This ended on September 10, 2021, when they lost to St. Francis High School of Mountain View. The Lancers, coached by St. Francis alum Greg Calcagno, beat De La Salle in the closing seconds of the game by the score of 31-28. [18] [19]
Mater Dei High School is a private, Catholic, co-educational secondary school in Santa Ana, California, located in and administered by the Diocese of Orange.
Robert Eugene Ladouceur is a retired American football coach. He began coaching the De La Salle High Spartans in Concord, California in 1979 when he was 25 years old. He took over a program that never had a winning season since the school's establishment in 1965. His first season as head coach resulted in their first winning season. His second season resulted in their first appearance in the California Prep Football State Rankings and began De La Salle's evolution into a perennial champion. From 1992 to 2004, he guided the team to 12 consecutive undefeated seasons, setting a national winning streak record for high school football of 151 consecutive wins—a record in US amateur sports exceeded only by the 159-game winning streak of Passaic High School in men's basketball and the 459 match win streak of Brandon High School in men's wrestling. Ladouceur was enshrined to the National High School Hall of Fame in 2001. His team topped the USA Today rankings five times and he is a three-time coach of the year. He retired on January 4, 2013 with a career record of 399–25–3. His .934 winning percentage is a record among coaches with 200 or more wins. Ladouceur is the all-time winningest coach in California high school football and has led the De La Salle program to numerous championships. A film about his life called When the Game Stands Tall was released on August 22, 2014. The film, which stars Jim Caviezel as Coach Bob Ladouceur, Laura Dern as Bev Ladouceur, Michael Chiklis as assistant coach Terry Eidson, and Alexander Ludwig as running back Chris Ryan, is about the record-setting 151-game 1992–2003 high school football winning streak by De La Salle High School of Concord, California. The film is an adaptation of the 2003 book of the same name by Neil Hayes and published by North Atlantic Books. Bob married Lissa Ladouceur on January 3, 2015. De La Salle head coach Bob Ladouceur retired in January 2013 after winning his last Open Division state championship in December 2012.
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