For the 2000 Justin-Siena High football team, the turn of the century marked the dawning of a new era -- in more ways than one.
For openers, the Braves would move from the CIF Sac Joaquin Section to the North Coast Section. The Superior California Athletic League disbanded and Justin, which is a private school in Napa, CA, with an enrollment capacity of 650 student, joined the Marin County Athletic League. The Braves new league would feature schools of double to approaching triple their enrollment.
Justin was entering the fourth season of head coach Rich Cotruvo’s tenure. In those days, football coaches staying at Justin for four years qualified as a dynasty. From 1987-1996, the Braves went 27-69 under four different head coaches before Cotruvo arrived in 1997. In Cotruvo’s first three seasons, he changed a losing culture as the Braves went 16-15. Before the 2000 campaign, Cotruvo bolstered his coaching staff by adding Jim Costan, Steve Vargus and Steve Hatton. Costan resigned as Vintage’s head coach after 1999, thus paving the way for Cotruvo to add him Vargus and Hatton. Vargus is widely regarded as an elite defensive coordinator within the North Bay.
The Braves’ season would be dealt an early blow in a 40-9 season opening win over the St. Helena Saints. Starting quarterback Steve Andres, who was a three-sport athlete that went on to play college baseball at Notre Dame, sustained a broken leg that kept him out for the remainder of the football season. He would later miss all of basketball season before returning for baseball.
In past seasons, losing a player of Andres’ caliber would have spelled doom for Justin. This turn of events was probably the first true sign of Cotruvo’s culture of “next man up” taking shape. With Mike McNamara being pressed into service, the Braves still ran their Houston split-back veer offense. It meant that everyone around him would need to be a better version of themselves. McNamara may not have had Andres’ raw athleticism but he executed the gameplan.
Throughout the season, Craig White, Zac Dollar, Chris Hay and George Tracy were the offensive line’s linchpins. Besides McNamara at quarterback, the Braves had what amounted to a thunder and lightning combination at running back. John DiMichele was a punisher. Give him a head of steam and you get an 18-wheeler rolling downhill. With Steve English, you had the speed element. Get him in space and you have a race car in the Indy 500.
Defensively, Vargus brought the 3-4 defense. The defensive line’s role was to consume blocks so as to free up the linebackers. Jared Wallace was a mountain in the middle flanked by Tracey. Dollar, Hay, Ron Duvall and Richard Janese flowed to the ball to wreak havoc.
The Braves followed their aforementioned win over St. Helena with two more non league wins (34-18 over St. Patrick’s-Vallejo and 23-0 over Winters). Justin’s first MCAL game defined inauspicious as the Braves lost 33-7 before bouncing back to beat San Marin (34-20) and Sir Francis Drake (21-19). The latter of which was a homecoming win to improve to 5-1. Justin, however, would backslide the next three weeks with losses to San Rafael 21-14), Terra Linda (14-6) and Novato (38-0) to drop to 5-4.
Heading into its season finale, the reeling Braves would need a win at Tamalpais (Mill Valley) to ensure a spot in the NCS Class A playoffs. Justin responded by railroading the Red-Tail Hawks 38-0 to earn the No. 5 seed in the eight-team playoff bracket.
When the postseason opened, Uncle Mo (as in momentum) continued to side with the Braves on the way to their first section title since 1983. Justin opened the postseason with a 28-7 win over John Swett, which was a former SCAL opponent. That victory marked the Braves’ first postseason triumph since 1983.
One week later, Justin would travel to top-seeded Kelseyville. The Indians had everything from a well-balanced offense to a strong defense. The game featured ebbs and flows but was undeniably one of the best wins in Justin-Siena football history:
One week later, Justin travelled to McKinleyville High to defeat perennial power Ferndale 16-14 for the NCS Class A title. In a sense, the win over Kelseyville felt like the championship more so than the title game win over Ferndale. Kelseyville appeared to have a well-balanced team poised to win its first section title since winning the NCS Class B crown in 1982. The Indians came into the game with a stout defense and a balanced offense led by running back Nate Kinsey and quarterback Brian Hanson.
The Braves would go on to win six more NCS titles over the next 14 seasons. However, given where Justin’s program was in the pre-Cotruvo era, it stands to reason that without 2000, the section titles in 2003, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2014 may not happen.
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