Schools

Good Times In CougarLand; Campolindo Braces for "Big Cat" State Bowl Championship Game

The Cougars of Moraga are headed to the Southland and a game with the Panthers of Washington Union to decide the best Division III school in the state.

If you were one of the teams to fall to the woefully underrated but ultimately victorious Campolindo Cougars this football season, you may be silently cursing the sportswriter who predicted the scrappy Moragans were headed nowhere but the DFAL cellar at the beginning of the year.

Instead, under the guidance of a coach who refers to his teams as his "kids" and who kept busy running between varsity and junior varsity locker rooms to counsel his teams on game days -- 2011 was a Cinderella Football Year for Campolindo.

All teams -- frosh, junior varsity and varsity -- finished unbeaten in league play. The Cougar varsity eked out an NCS Championship win with a nervewracking no-seconds-left field goal last weekend. They're off to Carson, CA for a game against Washington Union (Fresno) at noon Saturday at the Home Depot Center.

Find out what's happening in Lamorindawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"I cannot even think about that,” coach Kevin Macy said of his teams’ state title aspirations in a conversation with Patch's Adam Berke. “I do not know how we continue to do it, when it seems like all of the other teams have so much more than we do.”

Washington Union has a quarterback who likes to throw the ball and a Notre Dame-bound wide receiver who likes to catch it. They hail from Easton, an unincorporated portion of Fresno with about 2,000 residents.

Find out what's happening in Lamorindawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Macy is spending the week getting his team ready for the contest, and it appears some of his former players tried to alleviate the stress that comes with a state bowl bid by silently procuring the Christmas tree Macy had been too busy to get for his family.

That has Cougar written all over it.

For those of you not making the trip to Carson, here's how you can watch Saturday's contest live on Comcast SportsNet:

Saturday, December 17
12 p.m. Noon, Comcast SportsNet California (LIVE)
North, Campolindo-Moraga (14-0) vs. South, Washington Union-Fresno (13-0)     


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