The James Logan High football team has finalized its 2012 schedule, during which the Colts will play as an independent.

Logan will open its season with a Week 0 home game against Reed of Sparks, Nev. Reed went 12-2 last season, losing to Bishop Gorman-Las Vegas in the Nevada Class 4A state championship game.

The other addition to the schedule is a Week 5 road game against Del Oro-Loomis. The Golden Eagles went 13-2 and were the Northern California representative to the California Interscholastic Federation Division II state championship bowl game and lost to Helix-La Mesa 35-24.

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Tennyson High wide receiver Alson Paxton Jr. has accepted an offer and committed to playing football at Brown University. Brown, like all Ivy League schools, does not offer athletic scholarships. The 6-foot, 190-pound Paxton caught 46 passes for 793 yards and 12 touchdowns this season for the Lancers, who matched a school record with eight wins and made the North Coast Section playoffs for the second straight year — the only two playoff appearances in school history.

“He’s a great kid that helped turn the program around and is getting it done in the classroom,” Tennyson coach Terry Smith said of Paxton, who carries a 3.88 grade point average.

The James Logan High football team has been approved as a competitive anomaly and will play an independent football schedule for at least the next two seasons.
James Logan sought independent status to strengthen its schedule. With Moreau Catholic set to join the Mission Valley Athletic League next season, the Colts would’ve been limited to three nonleague games.
“Everyone knows that our league schedule is not that great,” Logan coach George Zuber said. “We found out that Moreau is joining our league and taking away one of our nonleague games. That’s taking away 25 percent of our good opponents.”
Other East Bay programs have competed as independents for periods of time over the years, including De La Salle football before the school joined the East Bay Athletic League, and the Berkeley girls basketball program. In Logan’s situation, the Colts agreed to allowed the MVAL to keep its automatic NCS playoff berth in order to expedite the approval process.
The move was approved by a 6-2 vote by the MVAL, according to North Coast Section Commissioner Gil Lemmon. It was sent out for ratification by the section’s Bay Shore Conference and by Wednesday had received enough approvals to make the move official, Lemmon said.
The criteria Logan met for being considered a competitive anomaly is based on its performance over the past five years, during which Logan has reached the NCS playoffs each season, achieved a dominant league record and won its league games by excessive margins.
The Colts are 28-1 in MVAL play over the past five seasons and in four of those seasons outscored their league opponents by more than 200 points. This past year, Logan outscored MVAL foes 311-32.
Logan will play the final four games of its MVAL schedule, which this fall will be against Washington, Newark Memorial, Irvington and Mission San Jose. The Colts will not be eligible for the league championship and also will forfeit some all-league nominations.
The Colts agreed to let the MVAL keep its automatic playoff berth, meaning Logan will need to qualify for the postseason as an at-large participant. That also means the Colts will not have home-field advantage if they were to play against a league champion in the playoffs.
“That’s what we were willing to do that to get this,” Zuber said. “We had to place our team goals in front of our individual goals.”
Logan has games scheduled next season against San Leandro, San Ramon Valley, Heritage and Berkeley and still is looking for two more games.

Here’s the 2011 All-East Bay team, as selected by the staff of the Bay Area News Group.

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My story from the Holiday Classic didn’t make it into a few of our early editions, I believe. I also didn’t get the box score into today’s paper. So here’s the story and the box score from last night’s game.

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Also receiving votes: McClymonds (10-2, 6 points), Las Lomas (9-3, 4), El Cerrito (7-3-1, 2), College Park (7-5, 1). The East Bay Football Poll is voted on by the prep sports staff of Bay Area News Group-East Bay.

Good news for Bay Area football fans. Previously scheduled to only be available on tape delay, the De La Salle-Westlake game this Saturday will now be televised LIVE by Comcast Hometown Network at 8 p.m.

That’s channel 104 for those of you that have Comcast. Jim Watson will handle play-by-play, Mike Pawlawski will do the color commentary and Jenny Cavnar will be the sideline reporter.

Remember also that you can see the other four games, including Campolindo-Washington Union, on Comcast SportsNet California.

Here’s the long awaited ACCAL all-league team, as selected by the league coaches. My apologies for the delay. I received it on Friday, but have been too busy with the NCS championship games to type it up. Also, this is the list as it was sent to me. It did not include any MVPs. I’m waiting to hear back if there is an updated official list with any MVPs that were named and I’ll update this and get it in the paper once I receive that.

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