PREP FOOTBALL 2016: Few wins, but a lot of fun for the Mustangs

St. Vincent never gave up during 2-8 football season.|

The St. Vincent de Paul High School football team started the season by dominating Elsie Allen, 43-18. The Mustangs ended by holding off Portola, 35-32. In between, they went 0 for the North Central League I, losing eight straight league games.

As the season wore on, and the losses mounted, the Mustangs never wilted, never lost enthusiasm and never gave up.

“I’m as proud of this team as I am of any of my championship teams,” said head coach Gary Galloway, who knows a thing or two about championship teams after coaching for 37 years, 32 at St. Vincent.

“They came to practice every day. Nobody complained. It was like that every week. I’m going to have very fond memories of this team,” he said.

St. Vincent’s problem was not the quality of its own team nor the size of its collective heart. Its problem was the quality of the opposition and the size of its opponents’ player pools. Every other school in the NCL I was two to three times larger than St. Vincent in enrollment. And those larger schools were very good. Six of the seven league teams the Mustangs played reached the North Coast Section playoffs.

On the plus side, St. Vincent has long-standing relationships with every other team in the league; the Mustangs’ travel to the heavily-trafficked East Bay was eliminated; and, best of all, every team in the league fielded a junior varsity team. In St. Vincent’s prior league, only three schools offered JV opposition.

Faced with pretty much insurmountable odds every week, Galloway set realistic expectations. “We wanted to have no injuries and make sure the game was still fun,” he said. “We accomplished that.”

Due in part to a strenuous conditioning program and, honestly, in part to fortune, the Mustangs started with 19 varsity players and had that number at the end of the season, although there were brief absences and a lot of bumps and bruises along the way.

With only 19 players, the Mustangs had to be versatile and everybody had to contribute.

“Nobody complained about playing time,” noted Galloway. “Everybody had to play. They had to play different positions, and they had to be very unselfish.”

Typical of the Mustang attitude was that shown by sophomore Will Davis, a potentially outstanding wide receiver. When the Mustangs started the season without a quarterback, he volunteered to give it a try, and quickly developed into one of the team’s top offensive weapons.

Despite being almost constantly pressured by charging linemen, he completed 57 of 143 passes for 947 yards and 11 touchdowns. He also rushed for 172 yards and four touchdowns.

Thirty-one of the quarterback’s connections went to his senior brother Mike Davis, one of the best all-around athletes in the NCL I. Mike caught a pass in every game during his last two seasons at St. Vincent. He finished with 651 receiving yards and eight touchdowns.

He started the year primarily as a running back, but became more of a receiver as the season wore on. He finished with 504 rushing yards, and may have been the first St. Vincent athlete to receive and rush for more than 500 yards in the same season. He had a combined total of 11 touchdowns rushing and receiving, accounting for close to half the team’s total touchdowns. He even completed two long passes off reverses, one for a touchdown.

Like all Mustangs, the Davis brothers played on both sides of the football, and Will Davis was among the team leaders with 67 tackles, two more than his brother, who had 65.

St. Vincent could make more use of Mike Davis as a receiver as the season progressed because of the emergence of Tony Garcia-Bedoya as a running back. The senior ran for 437 yards on 52 carries, averaging 8.4 yards per carry and scoring three touchdowns. He also provided the Mustangs with a dangerous kick returner.

Perhaps the toughest of the Mustangs was 6-3, 200-pound team captain Nick Murphy, who led the Mustangs on both sides of the front line.

Brian Grion, who made up in size of his heart what he lacked in size of his body, led St. Vincent with 134 tackles from his linebacking position.

Eric Riley was a key player as both a pass catcher and a pass defender.

Another player who made major contributions as the season rolled along was Trenton Starrett, a 145-pounder who played bigger as both a receiver and pass defender. He finished with eight catches, but four were for touchdowns.

Ryan Silva’s tenure as a Mustang was brief but notable. The 6-1, 215-pound senior got into just three games, but was a force on both lines when he was able to play.

It is difficult for St. Vincent students to play two sports in the same season. Not only are there the obvious practice conflicts, but the school requires athletes who play two sports simultaneously to maintain at least a 3.5 grade point average.

Fernando Vaca and Martin Lopez managed to keep their grades up, and contribute to both the soccer and football teams, with Vaca giving the Mustangs’ a strong-legged kicker over the latter part of the season.

There were many others who helped along the way as the Mustangs battled in every game and, at the finish, went out winners.

And, there is hope for the future.

“I was very happy with the junior varsity,” said Galloway. “We have a solid group of quality athletes with good size. It is a matter of getting more of this year’s freshmen out for football.”

After more than three decades coaching football at St. Vincent, Galloway hasn’t given retirement so much as a thought. He is too busy preparing to help coach basketball and looking forward to coaching baseball.

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