If football were more like a chess game, where Xs and Os move about the board and hold value based on raw attributes such as speed and athleticism, than perhaps Friday night’s season opener between the Academy of Holy Angels and DeLaSalle would have gone differently.

Take all the athleticism that translates into the product that makes up DeLaSalle’s perennial basketball program, and the Islanders’ slew of rooks and bishops might be too much for many opponents to handle. The problem for the Islanders Thursday night in Richfield was that in the 11-man game of football, the Stars made more plays and showed their rival Catholic brethren who reigns on the gridiron.

It came with an increasingly emphatic delivery in the second half, where Holy Angels put the game out of reach with three late scores to dispatch DeLaSalle 26-6.

“It was bumpy,” DeLaSalle coach CJ Hallman said. “And penalties tell the story of the game for us.”

Four plays of 25 yards or more were called back because of infractions by the Islanders, who were unable to cash in on chances downfield. 

Holy Angels conversely used it’s physicality and conditioning to outlast DeLaSalle by grabbing an early lead and never trailing. The Stars won the game by toting the ball mostly between the tackles, winning more battles on the line of scrimmage and making more plays on both sides of the ball.

“I’m proud of the way our guys were able to stick with it and to work through our mistakes,” Holy Angels coach Jim Gunderson said. “And really, that’s a talented crew over there (DeLaSalle). They have some superior athletes, who are young and much improved from last year.”

The teams are similar in how they run their offenses, with spreads, option-themes and zone reads helping each stretch the ball the width of the field. But both also possess equally competent linebacking corps that countered each offensive attempt and helped contain the flats of the field fairly well.

Playing sideline to sideline fit into the modus operandi of the Islanders, who hoped to shape the direction of the game in that way. If DeLaSalle could launch its speed on the outside, then those jets would be hard to catch. Meanwhile, hope was that the Stars’ option (mostly) would be contained to the inside. Unfortunately for the Islanders, not enough of that would stick.

“When it comes down to it, if DeLaSalle were playing Holy Angels in a basketball game, we’d beat them by 80 (points),” Hallman said. “We feel we’ve got better athletes, so you hope it’s a matter of going sideline to sideline. But too many times, when we had big plays, we’d shoot ourselves in the foot.”

Perhaps the most valuable piece on the chessboard Thursday was Stars junior running back Jack Anderson, who carried the ball with steady regularity and found the end zone twice. 

Anderson opened the scoring with a rushing touchdown five minutes into the first quarter, and he scored the Stars’ third TD midway through the final quarter to put the game seemingly out of reach at 20-6.

With two minutes left, an illegal procedure penalty forced DeLaSalle to punt and resulted in a Holy Angels' touchdown a short time later. When the momentum threatened to swing, the Stars handled it far better.

“There are only so many of those you can come back from,” Hallman said. “That’s something we’re going to learn…it’s tough to come back (from a deficit) when you are racking up penalties like that. It just doesn’t happen.”

The Stars resume action next week at home against Chanhassen, but before then, they will enjoy this victory for a night.

“Our guys can hang their hat on the effort and how hard they worked,” Gunderson said. “The momentum swings, but you can’t get too up or too down, you just need to play the next play.”

The Academy of Holy Angels dealt the first blow, then endured the bumps in the road before turning it on in the second half to top visiting DeLaSalle 26-6 Thursday night in Richfield.

Penalties and a lack of crisp precision slowed both teams as they worked through opening-game hurdles.

In the end, Holy Angels made more plays on both sides of the ball.

The Stars struck first when halfback Jack Anderson scored on a run from 11 yards out just five minutes into the game, and Holy Angels would never trail.

Early in the second half, Stars quarterback Joseph Heimbold broke loose up the middle and took the ball 63 yards for a touchdown that pushed the lead to 13-0.

DeLaSalle’s TD came late in the third quarter, when quarterback Da’San Frazier connected on a 6-year pass with senior C.J. Criner.

Anderson added a rushing TD in the fourth quarter (on a 22-yard-run) to give the junior captain two for the night and put the game out of reach.

The Islanders (0-1) return to action next Friday at home against Irondale while Holy Angels (1-0) resumes play the same night at home against Chanhassen.