The Season: De La Salle ends its season with a bang - and another title

Video: The Season - De La Salle wins state championship

It was a few hours following De La Salle's disheartening and deflating 27-21 season-opening loss to Trinity (Euless, Texas) 18 weeks ago, and Taylor Lambert was equally deflated.

The Cal-Hi Sports video reporter was assigned to produce "The Season," a season-long mini-documentary on the nation's No. 1 football team. The boys from Concord, Calif., were ranked No. 1 by most services, including the MaxPreps Xcellent 25 National Football Rankings presented by the Army National Guard. The defeat, in which the Spartans played poorly, was a gut punch to the project.

Or was it?

"This might work out even better," Lambert said before boarding his flight back to California.

He was right.

From the top, De La Salle quickly dropped to the bottom emotionally. It was up to the coaches and players to pick themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps. Or, in this case, cleats. 

After a so-so rebound game in Week 2, it was a De La Salle Spartan locomotive the rest of the way and Saturday it completed its knocked-to-the-canvas-to-knockout season by defeating the nation's No. 1 team, Centennial-Corona, for its sixth California Open Division Bowl championship in seven years.

Game story/video

The final installment of "The Season" is a fantastic, intimate look at stirring pregame speeches from longtime defensive coordinator Terry Eidson: "Number two, all you can control is your effort, that's all we want. … Hang in there and stay together."

And also head coach Justin Alumbaugh: "You'll have to prove yourselves to be better with your physicality and discipline … collectively, you will be unstoppable."

Tied at halftime 7-7 against one of the nation's most prolific offenses – the Huskies averaged 56 points and 535 yards of offense per game — Alumbaugh ramped up the intensity with his halftime instruction: "We have to be the hammer. Make them tap out. This is what we trained you for!"

And after a stirring 28-21 win, there was predictable but heartfelt joy. The Spartans also catapulted ahead of several teams to earn the No. 1 spot in the MaxPreps National Football Computer Rankings presented by the Army National Guard, right where they started the season.

"The Season," had come full circle.

"We just had to suck it up," senior Damon Wiley said. "There was lots of cuts and bruises and sacrifice, but we pushed through."

Said Eidson, who doesn't offer praise easily: "What you did was incredible. What you showed tonight was one of the greatest efforts in Spartan history."

Said Alumbaugh: "That's one of the most gratifying moments I've ever been a part of."

For Lambert too.