JJ says: St. Vincent a big win for players, coach and school

Right after winning the North Coast Section Division 7 football championship, St. Vincent High School players were too caught up in the excitement and exhilaration of the moment to contemplate its significance.

They had the right to celebrate.Their 54-32 win over St. Helena capped the achievement of a lifetime. That is not hyperbole. The young men on the championship team will surely go on to many successes. Spring-boarded by the education received at one of the North Bay’s best schools, most will move on to top-rated colleges and universities. They will be successful in any number of careers. They will have families and become community leaders.

But wherever they go, whatever life-path they choose, they will always remember that cold November night when they became North Coast Section football champions. Years from now, they will relive and rehash that special night.

Words like “Unbelievable, surreal, great, everything and blessed,” were used to express feelings immediately following the game.

“It has always been our dream,” said Dante Antonini, the team leader on and off the field. “We always knew we had the potential. Now that we have won it, it is a great feeling. I can’t describe it.”

No one was prouder of his team or of the section championship than head coach Trent Herzog. It was what he was hired to do.

When Pat Daly took over as principal at St. Vincent de Paul High School, he took command of a school that had one of the best academic reputations in Sonoma County, and probably beyond. But its football team had fallen on hard times. The year before Herzog was hired to lead the football program, St. Vincent had a 1-8 record and didn’t win a game in the North Central League. The Mustangs barely had enough players for a varsity team, let alone a junior varsity squad.

The new principal began making changes in the administration, the classrooms and among the coaching ranks. Some were not popular. He needed a strong athletic program, especially football, to bring attention to the school and help reverse a trend toward decreasing enrollment.

In stepped Herzog, who had left Casa Grande under acrimonious circumstances. His first year, playing an independent schedule of any teams willing to schedule the Mustangs, they had a 6-5 mark. Significantly, on that team as freshmen were many of the players who would mature into leaders on this year’s North Bay League Redwood and NCS championship team.

In Herzog’s second year, playing another independent schedule, St. Vincent was 9-2 and then joined a recently revised North Bay League as a member of the Redwood Division. It was a step many doubted the Mustangs were ready to take.

COVID-19 temporarily intervened, but not before St. Vincent showed it was ready to take the big step by beating NBL members El Molino and Healdsburg and playing Analy nearly even in a 25-20 loss during a pandemic-shortened spring season.

Then came this season, a thus-far 11-1 record, a share of the NBL Redwood championship and now a section championship and a trip to the Nor-Cal playoff game.

“Playing to win a section championship is why you coach,” he said. “I’ve been to the championship game three other times as an assistant coach and this is the first time I’ve had a team win. This is awesome.”

And, according to the coach, it didn’t just happen. “We started from the ground up with putting together a good coaching staff,” he explained.

The players came primarily from the halls of the St. Vincent campus. With a few exceptions, most notably Kai Hall, one of the best running backs in Northern California, the senior heart and soul of the championship team are St. Vincent school products who started with Herzog as freshmen. Hall came from Wright Elementary Charter School because of St. Vincent’s academics.

“We have a great staff, but it is not the X’s and O’s that win championships, it is the Jimmys and the Joes,” Herzog said.

And it takes a team of Jimmys and Joes.

“This is a special group,” said Herzog. “Dante and Kai got a lot of recognition, and they deserve it, but there were a lot of others who made it happen. This was truly a team.”

While the accomplishment of this year’s team is extraordinary, it should not be forgotten that this isn’t the first NCS rodeo for a school with a proud tradition of football excellence.

Counted among legendary St. Vincent Coach Gary Galloway’s 214 career football coaching wins are four NCS championship game victories. The last came in 2008 when the Mustangs defeated St. Elizabeth of Oakland 30-6. That team went 11-1 with its only loss to Clear Lake 7-6, the result of a bad snap from center. That one loss probably cost the Mustangs a selection to the Nor-Cal playoff game at a time when there were only big school, medium school and small school divisions.

Now they are back with a group of young men who have made lifetime friendships and memories.