Northern California's Premier League has come down to, likely, the teams everyone thought would be at the top as Jesuit of Sacramento plays the Danville Oaks in Saturday's championship match.

Also on the slate, the DI final is down to the surprising and undervalued Central Parkway Harlequins against De La Salle. For the DII final, it's Bellarmine against Chico Oaks (yes, there are a lot of oaks in Northern California -- they're really pretty; you should go see them). All of those finals are at the Stockton Soccer Complex in Stockton, CA.

These teams have had their ups and downs, mostly, but De La Salle has been pretty dominant throughout the spring.

But back to the Premier Final. Jesuit is coming off a 40-24 defeat of CK McClatchy to get to this point. it was, perhaps, a good wakeup call for the Marauders as they fell behind 24-14 at halftime. 

Jesuit drew first blood 11 minutes into the game when flyhalf Dylan Boylan attacked the line and was able to offload to outside center Jayme Thomas for a well-taken try. Scrumhalf Carlos Ramirez converted. Thomas scored again five minutes later, and Ramirez continued his hot streak with the conversion. 

The wheels came off the Jesuit machine 20 minutes into the game when prop Conor Bellinger was yellow carded for a dangerous tackle. He was soon joined in the bin by Ramirez, and the Lions made them pay. McClatchy, led by its snappy inside backs, punished some weak tackling and took advantage of the numbers superiority the way a good team should, scoring four tries in about 10 minutes. 

In the second half, Jesuit regrouped. After the Marauders won the opening kickoff, a quick pass from hooker Eric Cervantes allowed prop Joe Marchant to take the ball at pace and crash over. Fullback Mason Phillips converted, and it was 24-21. Marchant ran in a second try 10 minutes later, and replacement flyhalf Brian Bauer converted for Jesuit to take the lead.

The final 25 minutes showed Jesuit's defensive prowess and the ability of the subs to make an impact. Flankers Tyler Collins and Brandon Calk put in aggressive shifts. Calk had a couple of punishing runs, but his ability to pick a line off the ruck really punished McClatchy.  He scored twice to help Jesuit close out the game. 

"McClatchy came to play and really stretched us at times, but these are the playoff and we know that no team will quit or back down," Jesuit head coach John Shorey said. "We had a few injuries this week, but we had the next player step up and make an impact. I'm proud of the team to make the adjustments at the half and come back to beat a very good McClatchy team. It get harder from here, but our players are peaking at the right time."

Danville, meanwhile, won its semifinal 17-3 over Granite Bay to advance to the Pacific Cup. In that tournament, Danville took second, and head coach John Straka said he would like to get another shot at Kahuku, which played superbly in the final.

But more than that, he likes where his team is right now.

"We made some mistakes, but overall we're happy with how we played," Straka said. "Physically, it was a tough tournament, but we've come out of it pretty well, and we have to because Jesuit is playing some great rugby. We just need to take care of the things we can control."

Straka said Jesuit is excellent at forcing turnovers in the ruck.

"So you can't just go phase after phase with them because you run the risk of losing the ball," Straka said. "But you have to be careful kicking the ball, too, because their counter-attack is really strong."