SARATOGA – With a league championship and Central Coast Section playoff spot on the line, Del Mar’s playbook was not complicated on Friday night.
On 22 of its 30 plays, Del Mar put the ball in Andre Latimore’s hands and let him go to work against Prospect. The senior quarterback put the team on his shoulders, rushing for 344 yards and passing for another 61 in the Dons’ 42-31 victory.
It punched the Dons’ first ticket to the playoffs since 2011. Playing in the Blossom Valley Athletic League’s “C-League,” only the West Valley’s champion was given a guaranteed spot in postseason play.
“We’ve been grinding for this for four years straight,” Latimore said after rushing for four touchdowns and passing for another. “To finally succeed, it’s the best feeling I could possibly feel right now.”
As Del Mar celebrated on one side of the field, Prospect’s players tearfully embraced one another as their feel-good season came to a close. After enduring an 0-10 schedule in the tougher BVAL Santa Teresa-Valley division in 2022, the 8-2 Panthers ended 2023 one win away from their first playoff appearance in recent memory.
“To turn it around, from 0-10 to 8-2, that means everything to me,” said senior quarterback Tommy Lewit, who had 220 total yards and three touchdowns. “Me and all the other seniors were just trying to turn the program around.”
Perhaps no run was more important than Latimore’s dash on the first play of the second half. Line up at the 20-yard line, he took the snap, found the gap in the Prospect defense, and outran a pack of chasing Panthers for an 80-yard touchdown to give Del Mar a 10-point lead.
After Prospect cut the third quarter lead back to 28-25 on an 11-play drive ending with a Tommy Lewit touchdown run, Latimore broke off a 61-yarder to give Del Mar another 10-point lead.
Any time Prospect appeared poised to catch up, Del Mar’s superstar sprinter seemed to have the answer. Latimore even threw his seventh touchdown of the season to Jake Schwoob late in the fourth, nullifying Ahmed Alnaimi’s late touchdown run for Prospect.
“I work too hard to not play the whole game,” said Latimore, who also forced and recovered a fumble on defense, “I just did everything I can do.”
Del Mar’s crushing rushing attack, which entered Friday night averaging 335 yards per game, threw the first punch. Led by slippery Latimore’s two rushing touchdowns, the Dons took a 14-0 lead into the second quarter.
Prospect’s offense finally got going after that, with Tommy Lewit capping a five-play drive with a 41-yard rollout pass to Jordan Sharpe. The burly senior shook off several tacklers and outran a few more down the right sideline to cut the Del Mar lead to 14-7 with 10:53 left in the half.
The Dons gave the hosts the ball right back by fumbling on the ensuing kickoff. Six runs later, Lewit snuck into the endzone and a Philadelphia Eagles-style “Panther push” and took the lead at 15-14.
Things looked dire for Del Mar when it fumbled again on its next drive, but the Dons’ defense made the play Del Mar needed.
Julian Reyes Vargas ripped the ball away from a Prospect ball-carrier, and Bradley Tavish scooped it up and ran it back 15 yards for the touchdown and a 21-15 lead with six minutes left in the half.
“When we got it back and scored, that changed the game,” Del Mar coach Robert Chapman said. “That was one of our seniors that picked it up.”
Prospect added a field goal late in the first half to go into halftime down just 21-18. The Panthers dominated the time of possession and ran twice as many plays (62-30) as Del Mar.
But they didn’t have an answer for Latimore, whose opponent will be revealed on Sunday.
“That number 3 for Del Mar, he’s a special athlete,” Prospect coach Rick Esparza said. “He’s going to be tough for anyone to stop.”
