De La Salle defeated Jesuit Sacramento 27-12 in Northern California single-school action.

Missing a few players due to injury, DLS was able to welcome back center Peter McKenna back from a hamstring issue. He was moved to flyhalf for this game and logged a very good performance, finding gaps and using his support. In fact, he set up the opening try with a line break that allowed the forwards to swarm in.

Lock Adam Devlin crashed over for the 5-0 lead.

A few minutes later, the Spartans backs moved the ball wide off a lineout and fullback Brayden Park pulled off a nice sidestep and was in from 20 meters. Park converted for the 12-0 lead.

Then, as halftime approached, hooker Harrison Kapust fed wing Carson Phillips and he hit scrumhalf Tyler Holmberg, who was running a classic #9 support line, on the inside for the try.

That made it 17-0 at halftime.

Jesuit started to answer. They were very good in the scrums and they were happening more and more frequently as the rainy weather had made the field muddy. The Marauders' scrum backed up DLS and then the Spartans tried to run out of their own in-goal only for the ball to be intercepted by center Barrett Saich for a Jesuit try.

De La Salle answered back after a turnover and got the ball to No. 8 Jasper Buttles. He stepped inside his man and was through for the 22-5 lead. Both teams scored late, Jesuit through hooker Joshua Baleiwelagi and DLS through wing Turner Madge.

"They punished our mistakes and we did not execute," said Jesuit Head Coach Andrew Acosta. "We had a chance to close the gap."

For De La Salle Head Coach Derek Holmberg, the Spartans struggled in the scrum and in their kicking game. The conditions didn't help either side.

"Field conditions were tough so tries that should have resulted from good play were lost to knock-ons and players falling on the ground," said Holmberg. "I hate mud games as I always want to see each team at their best, but the boys had a blast in the mud and that is what it is all about.

St. Francis Impresses

Also in the NorCal Single-School league, St. Francis smoked St. Ignatius San Francisco 74-12.

"We played our pattern better today and were able to score both long range tries as well as some multi-phase tries where we worked the ball up the field patiently," said St. Francis Coach Mark Scharrenberg. "We still need to work on our discipline as we gave up too many penalties."