Season-ending loss does not detract 2017 Wolves season

Short of winning a CIF State Section title, most teams will not see their season end in victory.

You frequently hear the notion that “you are only as good as your last game.” I can understand that point having value but I tend to take a different approach -- “a person or team’s resume is their body of work over a period of time.”

The No. 7 seeded American Canyon High football team saw its season end Friday with a 62-32 loss to the No. 2 seeded Manteca Buffaloes on Friday night in the San Joaquin Section Div. III playoffs. Manteca will host No. 3 Christian Brothers, which defeated No. 11 Rio Linda 30-21, on Friday. By all appearances, Manteca and No. 1 Oakdale, which hosts Patterson after beating Vanden 41-16, are on a collision course to meet in the finals.

Taking the resume and body of work into consideration, the 2017 American Canyon Wolves season was a success. The term “success” means different things to different people but 7-4 after an 0-3 start with a sixth consecutive Solano County Athletic Conference title would qualify as such. I can think of many programs that are down and out that would take that season.

The Wolves entered Friday with the deck stacked against them but they actually took a 7-0 lead when quarterback LaVar Seay connected with Erick Stewart on a 68 yard scoring strike on the game’s opening season. Manteca led 14-13 after one quarter and despite extending the lead to 34-20 at halftime the Wolves were still in contact. The Buffaloes, however, owned the second half, outscoring American Canyon 28-12. Quarterback Gino Campiotti completed 15 of 18 passes for 248 yards while also adding another 103 as a rusher.

Manteca entered the game No. 11 in the CalHiSports.com Sac-Joaquin Section Top 20, No. 12 in the Prep2Prep.com Sac-Joaquin Section Top 25, and No. 18 in the MaxPreps.com Sac-Joaquin Section Rankings. Manteca is also listed as among teams on the bubble in the CalHiSports.com State Top 50.

As for the Wolves, the season got sideways in the early going with a season opening 36-34 overtime loss to Woodland. Two more dominoes subsequently fell with defeats against Vintage (28-14) and Inderkum (53-0).

American Canyon gained the services of running back Eddie Byrdsong and went seven straight. Per CIF rule, Byrdsong, who transferred from Vintage, had to sit out 30 days which equated to three games. While there were several contributors throughout the season, Byrdsong’s physical running style ignited American Canyon.

Like most teams in the immediate area, the North Bay wildfires interrupted the season. Besides destroying numerous structures, the fires produced unsafe air quality which caused one, and for some teams two, game to get cancelled.

The Wolves aforementioned seven game winning streak led to a sole possession SCAC title, which the team had made its goal after having shared the previous three with either Vanden or Benicia.

The landscape will change for the Wolves, who will be moving to the North Coast Section beginning the 2018-2019 school year along with Napa and Vintage. Justin-Siena, which relocated to the NCS in 2000, will be in the same league as Napa, Vintage, American Canyon, Sonoma, Petaluma and Casa Grande. For openers, it means no more trips going East on Interstate 80, where traffic can be unpredictable to put it mildly.

Most of all, from the Wolves’ perspective, it is a chance to register as a more central figure on the Napa Valley radar, which is significant because they are in the Napa Valley Unified School District. Vintage is a rising star under second-year head coach Dylan Leach. As for Napa and Justin, those programs have hit a fork in the road after lengthy runs of success that date back to the early 2000s. Napa went 3-6 last season with a hazing scandal that led to head coach Troy Mott’s resignation going public. Justin has gone a combined 6-12 the last two seasons.

While the Wolves are 55-28 in their six-year existence, the program has been in the shadow of the Napa schools. Part of the season is because American Canyon had been in the SCAC playing the likes of Benicia, Vanden, Fairfield, Vallejo and Bethel. In a nutshell, the Wolves presence and success resonated more in Solano County than Napa County.

The Wolves aforementioned record is actually a little deflated based on going a combined 9-12 in 2011 and 2015. Both seasons are easily explainable. In 2011, the Wolves were a first year varsity program with no seniors. In 2015, American Canyon was enduring its third coaching change in as many years.

That’s another beauty of the Wolves’ success being sustained, they did it despite having three coaching changes in as many seasons from 2013-2015 going from Ian MacMillan to Ernie Lawson to Larry Singer. Such an event is normally a disruption, to American Canyon’s credit, the beat has continued.

While Friday’s loss to highly regarded Manteca was a clunker, when I think of the 2017 Wolves, that game is a blip on the radar. When I think of this season’s Wolves, it’s about how seniors such as Seay, Kama Aalona, Brenden Johnson,  Robbin Brown, Stewart, Hunter Snyder, Shawn Sto Domingo and Lucas Gramlick carved out their own space in American Canyon football lore.