Patrick Walsh is one of those up-and-comers who you just get the
feeling is going to be very successful.
Patrick Walsh is one of those up-and-comers who you just get the feeling is going to be very successful.
Let’s get past the argument about Serra being a Catholic school and the non-public schools being able to recruit, and focus on the individual.
Gilroy High football coach Rich Hammond knows the Mustangs will face the best offense they will see all season tonight. Not that the Padres are unbeatable. They have already lost once.
And yet, it was in that loss that Serra seemed to gain more respect than in its two wins combined.
Of course, when your team extends De La Salle, you’re going to get noticed. And make no mistake about it. The Padres gave the Spartans all they could handle before falling 40-28.
What a difference a year makes. Walsh admits Serra played scared in 2005 before falling to De La Salle, 60-13.
If anyone understands the Spartans’ mystique, it’s Walsh, class of 1993. Walsh was a standout running back at De La Salle under legendary coach Bob Ladouceur. He also coached there for three years. Listen to his philosophy and you can learn about his pedigree.
“With all due respect to our opponents, we focus on what we do, not what they do,” Walsh said. “If they are a mature group of kids and are focused on what we do, then they can be a championship-caliber team.”
Walsh is justifiably proud of the way his team played against De La Salle. But his mind is on Gilroy. He knows all about the Mustangs. Listening to him speak, you understand why he is successful.
“If we take them lightly, we’ll lose,” Walsh said. “They have players who can hurt us. Coach Hammond has a nice team. They should be 2-1 like us because they should have beaten Woodside.”
Hammond is also a good, young coach. He knows Gilroy is a heavy underdog against Serra, who he says flatly is “the best offensive team we’ll face all year.”
He also knows the Padres’ Achilles heel. Their defense is not the best GHS will face this year.
Thus, keep talented sophomore quarterback Cody Jackson, shifty running back Deleon Eskridge, bruising 220-pound fullback Jeff Thomas and 6-3 receivers Andrew Cullins and B.J. Bryant off the field, and they can’t hurt the Mustangs.
A tall order, indeed, but Gilroy was able to control the ball effectively against Burlingame and Woodside. Doing so against the Padres is the only way GHS will be successful.
But back to De La Salle. Everyone knows the Spartans are normally one of the highest scoring teams in America.
And yet everyone who knows the De La Salle program knows that it all starts up front. And that’s why Serra ultimately came up short against the Spartans.
“We just didn’t have the firepower up front to win the game,” was Walsh’s honest assessment. “Our right tackle was 178 pounds and their lineman across from him was 250, and just as fast.”
All any coach wants is improvement, and going from a 48-point blowout to trailing the top team in California and one that is in the top-5 in the nation by six points in the fourth quarter is big-time improvement.
Using that as a springboard to a successful season becomes the main goal.
This is what Gilroy faces tonight. An imposing task? You bet. An impossible test? No. After all, Serra showed what can be done if you focus on the task at hand and not the opponent.
