Ask any Cardinal Newman player to compare this year's team to last year's state championship entrant and the most common answer is: "It's just different."
Different worked well Friday night for Newman, which opened the North Coast Section 3A playoffs with a solid, sometimes spectacular 35-14 win against Redwood of Larkspur at Ed Lloyd Field.
Spectacular came both early and late as Newman (9-1-1), the No. 1 seed in the 3A Redwood Empire playoffs, rocketed to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter and after the Giants (7-4) played even with the Cardinals for a quarter and a half, Newman turned it on late, sparked by a 75-yard touchdown run by quarterback Max Pond.
"The first one is the toughest one to get through," Newman coach Paul Cronin said of the playoffs. "This is when you get a headache that lasts to the next day. The playoffs are 'Wow, that was intense.' "
Some observers have wondered aloud how can this Newman team possibly be as good as last year's. Maybe it's not, but it has been good enough to stifle most opponents and certainly outscore them.
"This is a whole new experience," said Pond, who was a key member of last year's defense. "They (Redwood) were a tough eight seed. We wanted to set a fast tempo and then the offense kind of slowed down."
Pond ran a counter play, delaying for a second when taking the snap and then finding a hole, for his big gainers.
His long fourth-quarter TD run was impressive in that Pond, at the end of a game, was still able to run away from the defense.
Pond accounted for four of Cardinal Newman's five TDs.
In the first quarter, he threw a 7-yard TD pass to Brandon Borello, he ran for a 1-yard TD and then broke a counter for a 54-yard TD scamper.
All told, Pond, who also played some defensive back, rushed for 155 yards on 13 carries and was 9-of-13 passing for 104 yards.
Newman's defense played well. Lineman David Azevedo had seven tackles, a sack and caused a fumble by halftime.
Linebackers Lance Badger and Danny Negri had some key tackles and tackling was crisp and loud.
Redwood, to its credit, didn't just go away after falling behind 21-0. Quarterback Ben Morrison was 9-of-12 in the first half, good for a 110 yards. He found favorite target Alex Monetta for a 20-yard TD in the second quarter. It remained 21-7 until late in the third quarter when a Badger interception and return to the Redwood 11-yard line and a 3-yard TD Badger TD run put the game away.
"I got to play some DB on second and third and long," Pond said. "I miss it."
Asked for his take on the last two Newman teams, Pond said, "It's just a lot different. I think we've got a lot more speed on this team. Azevedo and Badger had big games and in the second half we kind of played it safe and didn't take any chances."
Next weekend Newman will play tonight's winner between Montgomery and Sonoma in a 3A semifinal.
"We wanted to set the tempo early and get the lead," said Cronin, whose no-huddle, sometimes described as "frantic" offense seemed to bother Redwood early.
"They slowed us down some afte that and we made some mistakes," Cronin said. "We need to be crisper."
A couple more games like this and Newman could find itself a repeat NCS Redwood Empire champ.
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