DeMatha....some info.
Scary thing about DeMatha is how they evolved after the Wood and LaSalle losses. Nothing embarrassing about losing to Wood’s great team or to LaSalle with Shurmur especially knowing how young the Stags were. That role is reversed this year, coming in with a more seasoned team vs a lot of newness with Wood and LaSalle. DeMatha graduated 30 seniors coming into last season and 20 starters from a team that was #1 in state and #19 per USA Today. So they were young, real young, starting sophomores at QB in Beau English and RB Anthony McFarland. WR Delante Hellams also a soph along with starting OL’ers Marcus Minor 6-4, 290 and Victor Oluwatimi 6-4, 280. Rest of line were juniors; Elijah Johnson 6-5, 300, Terrance Davis 6-4 305, JP Urquidez 6-6, 305, and Reiley Bartine 6-5, 285. Believe they graduated 8 starters from last year’s team (?) with a ton of experience returning. The above was cobbled together from game write ups..eg..Maryland, DC papers, etc and Stags site for roster.
About the evolution, some of their wins in the WCAC were against veteran, quality teams like Wood which I think shows their development as the season progressed. Beating Good Counsel (10-2, splitting games….losing regular 21-14, winning title game 24-20) and Gonzaga twice (10-3), then going 8-1 after LaSalle shows how all that young talent came together. The West Catholic crowd knows another WCAC team, St John’s (6-4, beat Burrs 37-6) was a pretty good bunch as well and only team to beat IMG-Bradenton. OLGC’s other loss was Gilman. Gonzaga had an impressive win was VA-6A power Centerville (13-3) who lost in the final to undefeated Ocean Lakes (15-0, Virginia Beach) 30-24, ot so the comp was strong as it usually is in the WCAC.