Last Home Football Game for 2011 Seniors
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October 31, 2011
Filed under Sports
Del Mar’s first part of a series of Senior Nights started off with a bang last Friday night. It was the last home game of the season and the Dons’ varsity football team captivated everyone with a 36-13 victory over San Jose High.
The game was preceded by a ceremony honoring the Seniors that have made themselves a part of Del Mar history. It started with the Seniors on the cheer squad and then the Seniors on the football team. You could really feel the emotion and the excitement of the ceremony through the crowd and the cheers that followed every single Senior.
Del Mar started with the Kick-Return and seemed to have all the momentum. However, San Jose managed to intercept the 3rd pass of the game and scored within 4 minutes of the first quarter. Tensions were running high on the field but the Dons managed to keep themselves together and #9, quarterback Francisco Aranda, managed to connect with #30, Dyvante Calapiz, for a touchdown to tie it up 7-7 with 6 minutes to go. And after all that, the Dons’ defense managed to keep San Jose High pinned down and #3, Dillon Howery, scored a tiebreaking safety to put the Dons in the lead at 9-7. To cap it all off, #84, David Diaz, caught a clutch interception which the Dons rode all the way to a 2nd touchdown by #5, Robert Baldwin-Grey to end the 1st quarter in favor of the Dons at 16-7. A nice recovery also put the Dons back into offense going into the 2nd quarter.
After a controlling performance in the first quarter, the Dons never seemed to let go of that domination. Baldwin-Grey put another TD on the board to extend the Dons’ lead to 23-7 going into the end of the first half.
The second half started with the Dons’ defense holding their own versus the respectable offense of San Jose High. They managed to keep San Jose High out of the red zone the whole third quarter (with another nice interception by Diaz) and the fourth quarter would end up just being the home stretch for the Dons. Aranda was able to connect with #6, Cedric Miller, for another great pass which scored the Dons’ fourth touchdown of the game. While San Jose managed to finally score to put the game at 30-13, Diaz caught his astounding 3rd interception of the game and ran it down the field to the end zone to effectively end the game with less than a minute left, putting the score at 36-13.
While this was the last home game ever for these Seniors, the melancholy feeling stepped aside for the Dons to take center stage and cinch the game, continuing on with a 5-0 record.