Daily Journal Sports File Two years ago, Serra hung with De La Salle until the Spartans pulled away in the fourth quarter. De La Salle is ranked No. 7 in the country by USA Today this week.

While Serra has yet to win a section championship during Walsh’s tenure, he feels he’s come close to molding the Padres to the nation’s premier program in every other way. At De La Salle, the words brotherhood, family and values are not simply catchphrases but words to live by. As long as his kids stay true to what Walsh is teaching and plays with class — win or lose — the former De La Salle standout running back will be plenty proud.

Of course, a win over the mighty Spartans would feel pretty good, too. Serra (1-0) hosts De La Salle (0-0) at 1 p.m. Saturday as the teams play for the fourth straight year. The Padres have lost the previous three games: 61-13 in 2005, 40-28 in ’06 and 40-22 last year. The recurring theme in each of those defeats was turnovers. Two years ago Serra fumbled the opening kickoff to spot the Spartans an early 7-0 lead.

Last season De La Salle took advantage of four Serra turnovers — all in the first half — to take a 40-0 lead into halftime. Breaking news: You can’t lose the turnover margin and expect to beat the machine that is De La Salle. Even though Serra handed the Spartans a quick lead two years ago, it battled back and made the game competitive for the better part of three quarters. That game was at home, and Walsh is hoping for an even better result this time around.

“We had the mindset (two years ago) that regardless of the score we were going to hit them as hard as we could,” Walsh said. “We let it all hang out and had fun. The other two games we played tense and were psyched out playing there (in Concord).”

There’s no need for the Padres to be intimidated, and you can bet Walsh is ingraining that into his players’ psyche. While the Spartans are immensely talented, they graduated their entire offensive and defensive lines from a year ago. Not even a program of De La Salle’s stature can lose that much talent on the lines and be as great the next year. Or can they?

“This year their line does not have as much experience, but as Bon Jovi once stated, ‘It’s all the same, only the names will change.’” Walsh said. “They still get off the ball, they still play tough and physical and they are the best coached lines in the state. Not like this is earth shattering information, given all football games are decided by the lines, but we must control the line of scrimmage if we want to have a chance to win the game.”

To that end, the responsibility falls on the shoulders of players including offensive linemen Andy DeLuca and Marc Baker, along with defensive linemen Doug Caldwell and Patrick Bowler. The Padres have a number of quality linemen on both sides of the ball, and if they can hold their own a victory isn’t out of the question.

That’s because Serra has the requisite talent, athleticism and playmakers to pull off the upset. The Padres are coming off a 56-0 beatdown of Westmont last week. It scored on its first seven drives — the first four scores coming on nine plays — and the game go so out of hand early Walsh pulled most of his starters by halftime. More importantly, the Padres didn’t commit a single turnover.

“I liked that, even though we out-matched the team we played, we played to our standard,” Walsh said. “We had zero turnovers, zero balls on the ground and five takeaways.”

Fleet-footed newcomer Don Andre Clark rushed for 78 yards on only three carries, including a 65-yard touchdown run, and quarterback Cody Jackson added touchdown runs of 4, 40 and 50 yards. Jackson finished with over 200 yards of total offense, going over 100 yards as a rusher and passer. Walsh has re-upped with his alma mater for two more years, through the 2010 season. There isn’t a better way to prepare for the rigors of West Catholic Athletic League play than to square off with the elite of the elite.

“I really enjoy this game,” Walsh said. “It is a great test for all of us, players and coaches included. It forces us to prepare at a higher level and since their speed and power is usually the best we see all year it prepares us for league.”

It’s well known that Walsh and De La Salle coach Bob Ladouceur have a father-son type relationship. The two still talk regularly and Walsh counts Ladouceur as one of the most influential people in his life. One of the many great memories Walsh has of his time at De La Salle occurred in 1993, when Ladouceur signed Walsh’s yearbook, “To the best running back I have coached at DLS.” Pretty hefty praise indeed.

“This meant so much to me because Lad rarely gave me or anybody else compliments,” Walsh said. “He has a very old school, rugged relationship with players, which endears us to him. When he wrote this it meant the world to me and validated all the pain, struggle and torment that I went through during my time there. Since then Atari Callen, Maurice Drew, Kevin Simon, D.J. Williams, Terrence Kelley, Kaylan Butler (current) have all gone through (there) so I am not sure he would still stick to that compliment, but I took it at the time!”

Make no mistake: Despite all of the fuzzy and warm feelings Walsh has for Ladoceur, he would take great pleasure in victory. There’s nothing personal — at least between these two — when it comes to the heat of competition. It’s the classic student-teacher matchup. So it all comes down to this: Right here, right now, the Padres once again get a chance to knock off a high school football team synonymous with greatness.

Brotherhood. Family. Values.

Walsh has made it a point to stress those aspects and make it a theme for this season, and they certainly will be tested on Saturday.

“We believe in ourselves, we believe in one another and we believe that we will play with heart and passion,” Walsh said. “We don’t care about the scoreboard, we care about living up to the standards we have created and we care about not letting the man down next to us. We are excited about having De La Salle come to Serra to put this brotherhood to the ultimate test.”

And what a test it will be.