SAN JOSE – The path to the Blossom Valley Athletic League Mt. Hamilton Division championship was clear for the Leland Chargers on Friday night.
They didn’t need help from elsewhere. They just needed to win — and that’s what they did.
Leland closed out the regular season with a 24-8 victory on the road over Lincoln behind the hard-nosed effort of running back Mark Eby between the tackles.
The 6-foot-2, 205-pound co-captain amassed 197 yards on 35 carries and crossed the goal line twice in the second half.
“It’s really amazing,” Eby said of the Mt. Hamilton title, Leland’s first in the MaxPreps era, which dates back to 2004. “I’ve been playing with my dawgs for three years, so going into CCS with this momentum I think is going to turn out great.”
No. 22-ranked Leland (8-2, 6-1 Mt. Hamilton) didn’t have to share the title with runner-up Live Oak (7-2, 5-1), which had its game against Lincoln canceled and declared a no-contest because of a COVID-19 issue on the Live Oak campus.
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Even though each finished with one loss, but the Chargers hold the tiebreaker.
“It’s by winning percentage,” Leland coach Kelly King Jr. said, “so we’re outright champs.”
Leland beat Live Oak on the field, 14-13 on Oct. 1.
Lincoln (6-3, 4-2) could’ve finished tied with Live Oak atop the standings on Senior Night, but it just wasn’t meant to be against a more physical opponent that dominated the line of scrimmage.
The Lions managed only one first down on their first five possessions, which came courtesy of a roughing-the-punter penalty. Not until the final possession – a 13-play, 76-yard drive – was Lincoln able to avoid a shutout on junior quarterback Tayden Phillips’ 5-yard keeper.
“I thought we competed the whole time,” Lincoln coach Kevin Collins said. “Our defense gave us enough opportunities to put points on the board and our offense struggled moving the ball because their defensive front was real tough.”
It’s not the end of the world for the Lions, who for the first time in school history are free to participate in the Central Coast Section playoffs.
The historical Big Bone Game against San Jose, which was previously held on Thanksgiving Day, shifted to Labor Day for the foreseeable future.
That means Lincoln, an automatic qualifier into CCS as a top-four finisher in the Mt. Hamilton, will find out its opponent Sunday in next week’s opening round of the postseason.
“It’s something we looked forward to when this year started,” Collins said. “Never before, but this year, yeah. … I told them after the game, ‘Take care of your bodies this weekend and we’ll see you on Monday. We’ve got another season.’ We’re lucky enough and we’re going to ride it as long as we can.”
He added: “Last spring we were 0-5, we were picked to finish last in the league by the Mercury News. … We weren’t picked to do well at all, and our kids rose to the occasion. I’m really proud of them. They played their hearts out tonight.”
Leland had its hands full in the first half, unable to find the end zone until 37.3 seconds left to intermission.
The first points came midway through the second quarter on a 37-yard field goal by senior Cade Whitson, last year’s first-team Bay Area News Group kicker of the year.
But the Chargers didn’t play it conservatively late, as quarterback Nathan Wright tossed a 6-yard fade to 6-foot-6 wide receiver Nick Ames to head into the locker room up 10-0.
“They have explosive guys on offense,” King said. “So we didn’t want to leave it to chance and decided to put the ball up.”
Leland dug deep during a 16-play, 77-yard drive that ate up over 8½ minutes off the clock that culminated in a 3-yard touchdown run by Eby to make it 17-0.
After the defense forced a three-and-out, Eby weaved his way into the end zone from 31 yards out, lowering his shoulder into the last would-be tackler for good measure.
“This is my senior year,” Eby said. “So I really want to play an extra few weeks.”
Leland isn’t sure where it will land when the playoff brackets are announced.
“We’ve got to see what happens with the computer,” King said. “We’re expecting either low Division II or high Division III. Obviously, a Division III game would be nice to have a home game, but we’re just going to be happy to be in the playoffs and whoever we get we’re going to try to work our tails off.”
