WHS Huskies FootballWashington High School, Fremont, CA

By Chace Bryson, Oakland Tribune

Silencing the doubters and critics hasn’t been an easy task for the Washington High football team this season.

The North Coast Section seeded them No. 11 in the 16-team Division I bracket. The Huskies had to play a first-round game on the road, against a team they had already beaten once this season. And, some may have even doubted their chances in Saturday’s quarterfinal against visiting College Park, a No. 14 seed that had knocked off No. 3 Amador Valley a week before.

But Washington stayed unfazed and defeated the upstart Falcons 31-9 to advance to an NCS semifinal next Saturday at Pittsburg.

"This group has come along ways," Washington coach Ken Wittmer said. "Nobody agreed that we could get here. Well you know what, you’re always as good as you are on Friday and Saturday night. And that’s it."

Washington (9-3) never trailed on Saturday. A 1-yard run by Deandre Clark, the first of three on the night for the flyback, gave the Huskies a 10-0 lead midway through the second quarter.

College Park (6-6) was able to answer with a 12-play drive and go into the intermission trailing just 10-7 after an 18-yard touchdown pass from Taylor Valdez to Matt Guilliaume with 47 seconds left in the first half.

"We just wanted to stress execution," Wittmer said of the Huskies talk during the half. "We didn’t feel like we had made many mistakes. We just needed to execute in our situations."

Washington opened the second half withan eight-play scoring drive that was aided by two critical fourth-down penalties on College Park. Following the second penalty, Clark scored from 19 yards out.

The Huskies pushed the lead to 24-7, but the Falcons still had life after a forcing a safety with 7:14 remaining. However, College Park could not get a first down on either of its two ensuing possessions and turned the ball over on downs.

"We lost too many individual battles today," College Park coach Bill Kepler said. "We had our chances after the safety, down two scores with eight minutes to go, but we kind of fell on our face a little bit."

From www.contracostatimes.com/ci_13888148