Serra Padres football preview

On the heels of last season’s historic run, Serra has seen significant turnover, especially on offense, where senior guard Ryan Silver is the only returner to have started last season’s opener at Palo Alto.

“Each and every year, you hang your hat on your seniors,” Walsh said. “With the young talent we have, combined with healthy senior leadership, I’m hopeful for this team.”

Serra’s strength, however, lies in its quartet of “super juniors” — safety Joseph Bey, nose tackle Collin Tahitua, and linebackers Danny Niu and Jabari Mann — who made program history in the truncated 2020 season in the spring of 2021 as the first group of freshmen to play varsity football for the Padres. They were also the first position players ever to do so.

“I would not agree with the statement that we are rebuilding,” Walsh said. “I think we are more in a reload stage because we had so many players that contributed all throughout the season in 2021, particularly on the defensive side of the ball. … There’s a handful of guys who have been on the team since freshman year that are in their third year of varsity, particularly on defense.”

Defensive coordinator Steve Monsef’s crew is headlined by eight junior starters. The only senior starters are defensive ends Seamus Gilmartin and Sam Goligoski, and cornerback Alex Atkins.

“I would say this could be one of our fastest defenses we’ve had collectively,” Walsh said. “We’ve had individuals who are faster … but collectively, I would say this is stacking up to be one of the fastest defenses we’ve ever had.”

Atkins, though, will be pulling double duty as one of four quarterbacks in the mix. The Padres are looking to replace West Catholic Athletic League Quarterback of the Year Dominique Lampkin, who arrived at the varsity level as a sophomore and proceeded a string of future NCAA Division I quarterbacks in Daylin McLemore (Arizona State) and Luke Bottari (preferred walk-on at Utah).

Along with Atkins, junior Maealiuaki “Maui” Smith is slated to take snaps when Serra opens its season Friday night at Folsom. Also in the mix are junior Brooks Trimmer, last year’s starter under center for the junior-varsity Padres, and freshman Brandon Mann, the first freshman quarterback in program history to make the varsity roster for the season opener.

The Padres have an array of senior targets in tight end Seamus Gilmartin — who last season ranked second on the team in receptions (16) and touchdown catches (5) — and wide receivers Joey Villaroman and Grant McGovern, the latter of whom was thrust into action last season when Serra lost its leading receiver, now-graduated Hassan Mahasin, who earned WCAL co-Utility Player of the Year honors despite appearing in just four games before suffering a season-ending injury.

“Where we dealt with a lot of misery with losing our MVP last year, someone like Grant McGovern jumped in and got a ton of experience,” Walsh said.

It’s this type of experience that fuels Serra’s onward-and-upward philosophy. And, in case the high school football world hasn’t noticed, there is only one more step to climb on the state ladder since the Padres finished as CIF Open Division state runners-up.

The Padres are not wasting any time seeing where they stand in the Northern California power rankings. Before embarking on their seven-game WCAL schedule, the Padres take on Folsom in Week 1 and Central Catholic in Week 3 — the two teams met in last year’s CIF Division 1-AA State Championship Bowl — sandwiching a Week 2 opponent in De La Salle, the No. 1 ranked team in Northern California, according to CalPreps.com.

“We don’t like being stagnant,” Walsh said. “And while the status quo from an outsider’s perspective would be ‘very good,’ for us we can always be better. And here at Serra, independent of the 21 years that happened before us, we are encouraging this group of players to set a new standard for Serra football.”

In this sense, the most integral “returners” to the Serra mix, according to Walsh, are his assistant coaches. Monsef returns for his seventh year heading the defense, while Darius Bell enters his sixth year as the offensive coordinator.

“First and foremost, particularly at the high school level, … we’ve had a ridiculous amount of continuity at the coaching positions,” Walsh said. “While in some years I’ve had to replace certain coaches, and spent a lot of time on that, all we’ve been doing recently for the last five or six years is refining things that we believe we can do better year over year over year.

“So, it’s taking that success we’ve built upon, and the continuity, using it from a legacy perspective, and then challenging the players to improve on it,” Walsh said. “Now, because we’ve had success, particularly since 2013 … I think that players and people in the Bay Area know we run a faith-based, high quality football program. And, yes, I believe people want to play here, people want to be here with us.”

Serra’s somewhat deliberate climb through the CIF power rankings since 2013 — when the program made its first state championship tournament appearance — is more about the process than the result, according to Walsh.

“I think that’s living in some fantasy as you project things as you want them to be,” Walsh said. “It doesn’t always work out that way.”

But mapping out his group of third-year varsity juniors — who Walsh already refers to as “super seniors” for 2023 — the winningest coach in Padres history, as he enters his 22nd season at the helm, said he is certainly thinking in terms of a two-year plan.

“Of course,” Walsh said.