Elsie Allen ends Sonoma County's longest losing streak at 25 games

The longest active losing streak in Sonoma County football ended Friday night.

Elsie Allen, which had not won a game since the opening week of the 2017 season, beat Round Valley 24-0 in front of a roaring home crowd in west Santa Rosa to end a 25-game losing streak.

For the Lobos, it is only their second win since 2013 and their first since switching to an eight-person program a few years ago.

“It was absolutely a community event,” said Casey Cunningham, Elsie Allen's assistant principal and athletic director. “It was really heartwarming to witness. Our school needed this.”

Elsie Allen's program has struggled in the past, winning just 10 games between 2004 and 2020. Due to low participation and other factors, the school was unable to field a varsity team in 2021 and 2022. The Lobos made their comeback to the field in 2023 as an eight-man team, but finished 0-9 and were outscored 504-78.

But that was already history by Friday evening.

After a rousing national anthem by the Elsie Allen Band, Angel Iniguez Ayon scored a 70-yard touchdown in the opening quarter. He scored a 15-yard touchdown in the second quarter and Nicholas Vazquez Lobata scored a short touchdown run that made it 24-0 at halftime.

In the second half, the Lobos defense shone, securing the clean sheet with a goal line stop and sealing the win with an intercepted pass from Uriel Gonzalez Pacheco.

“The atmosphere was great, Friday night football, and I hadn't been there for 10, 15 years. I was there for the rugby, not the football,” said Josh Inong, Elsie Allen's new head coach, who graduated from the school in 2005 and was a former standout rugby and football player. “I didn't know it had been seven years (since Elsie's last win). That's crazy.”

The celebrations at the school came a week after a 13-year-old student was stabbed on campus. A 14-year-old boy was arrested and Elsie Allen's season-opening game against neighboring Roseland University Prep was canceled. Inong said one of his assistant coaches is a campus supervisor and suffered a minor injury in the stabbing.

Inong said he discussed the incident at school directly with his team during training last week.

“That was my big theme last week. It was about changing the story of Elsie Allen, not just in terms of the football team, but in terms of what's in the newspaper,” Inong said. “That was our big theme: How can we change the story, how can we control our outcome and how can we change it so that we make a positive difference.”

Cunningham added of the win, “When you step on campus, you don't understand how special it is until you spend some time there. It was nice to see something positive that we could all share.”

Elsie Allen will carry her momentum into next week's game against Calistoga (1-0), which defeated Tomales 42-16 on Friday.

YReach staff writer Gus Morris at 707-304-9372 or [email protected]. On X (Twitter) @JustGusPD.