SAN FRANCISCO — A polite handshake line gave way to a postgame prayer at midfield. Then the celebration began.
“Eight years of frustration,” Danny Sullivan smiled, the first words out of the coach’s mouth after breaking away from his team’s hooting and hollering on the visitor’s sideline. For the first time under his watch, Archbishop Mitty toppled WCAL rival St. Ignatius on Friday night.
It wasn’t even as close as the 37-23 final score would indicate.
The Monarchs (3-1, 1-0) got 234 yards on the ground from senior Lazaro Faraj-Washington, forced a trio of turnovers and held the Wildcats without a first down for the majority of the game. The margin reached 37-7 with 8:31 to play before Sullivan brought in the second stringers.
Mitty hadn’t beaten St. Ignatius since 2016, two years before Sullivan arrived on campus. The Wildcats had won eight straight meetings between the schools and were crowned the CCS Open Division champions last season. In the first conference game of the season, Mitty matched its win total from last year, when it finished 1-6 in WCAL play.
“We didn’t really say how long (it had been), but we’ve had enough older brothers come through and the message was kind of going around,” Sullivan said. “You never want it to go on that long. It starts to become a burden and you start thinking about it.”
Nobody had to inform Faraj-Washington, whose older brother, Zondre, was on the last Mitty team to beat St. Ignatius. He ran the ball 34 times, including three carries of 30-plus yards and another 19-yard gain, topping 200 total for the first time in his career.
“It was just a lot of pent up — we haven’t beat these guys in eight years,” said the running back, who scored three times. “He told me he was on the last team to beat them, so I had to make history repeat itself.”
The schools’ previous three meetings were decided by one score, and Faraj-Washington said he blamed himself for last year’s 24-19 loss after he fumbled on the goal line. There were no close calls this year.
Faraj-Washington broke off a 47-yard run on one of the Monarchs’ first plays from scrimmage that set up a 19-yard touchdown strike from senior quarterback Joseph Engin. The Wildcats responded with their own explosive play and score, a 47-yard connection down the sideline from quarterback Bobby Gomez to Ty Hicks followed by a 12-yard touchdown run from Luke Tribolet, to go up 7-6.
Tribolet crossed the goal line with 6:31 left in the first quarter. St. Ignatius wouldn’t record another first down until there was less than 11 minutes to go in the game. Mitty’s defense forced the Wildcats to go three-and-out four times, picked off two passes, including one returned for a touchdown, and put more points on the board in the form of a safety.
Already up 21-7 at halftime, Caden Kelly intercepted the first pass of the second half. Up 30-7 early in the fourth quarter, Mitty allowed St. Ignatius to move the chains for the first time since its opening drive, making it all the way to their 20-yard line, but Kai Sniffen extinguished the threat and sealed the win with a pick-six he returned more than 80 yards to make it 37-7.
“The way our defense moves and does things, it creates a lot of confusion for an opposing offense,” Sullivan said, crediting the defensive line “for creating havoc and allowing our linebackers to get where they need to be.”
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Mitty has finished the year with a winning record just once in the past five seasons.
But, like against St. Ignatius, the program believes its fortunes are turning.
“Maybe things haven’t been great the last couple years,” Sullivan said. “But we’re trying to find our footing and our own identity, and we’re doing that.”
Faraj-Washington went a step further.
“I don’t see us losing at all,” he said. “That’s the goal: I don’t want to see us lose any games.”