De La Salle soccer coach Derricke Brown laughed when asked if he needed a wheelbarrow for all of the awards he's raking in following another section title.

"No, I just have a small little desk area here, so I don't have room for too much," said Brown, who also serves as the DLS associate athletic director.

The hardware is piling up, though, as Brown led De La Salle (18-7-2) to a sixth consecutive section title this season, including three with the 35-year-old as head coach. Brown, a St. Joseph Notre Dame High grad, spent his first seven years in the Spartans program as an assistant.

De La Salle took a 2-0 lead in the title game against Monte Vista-Danville at Dublin High before the Mustangs found the net. The Spartans were able to hang on after that.

"There were one or two shots the last few minutes, including one that had us on the edge of our seat, but we were able to get by," Brown said.

The Spartans barely edge Monte Vista for first place in the EBAL race, finishing just one-half game ahead.

As for the Coach of the Year awards he's been realizing from various media outlets - including this one as the Prep2Prep North Coast Section Coach of the Year - Brown called them "Humbling."

The Spartans coach received a partial scholarship out of SJND to play at St. Mary's. He coached some youth soccer and did a few summer camps while in college and then applied at DLS following a tip from a fellow Gael. He's been there ever since as a coach and faculty member, who recently moved into the athletic department full-time to work with athletic director Leo Lopoz.

Brown is a friend of the Spartans' young football coach Justin Alumbaugh and jokes with Alumbaugh him that he should be added to the intense DLS football staff.

"I tell him that I can be the assistant kicking coach on the freshman team or something," Brown quipped. "But they haven't hired me just yet."

As far as soccer goes, Brown says player turnover is always difficult, though he's been able to get by. .

"That's just the way high school athletics is," he said. "You always have a few pieces of the puzzle back, but it's usually a new group coming in that has to establish an identity and then you go from there."

Brown has been successful at re-casting his team each year, maintaining a level of success rarely seen in the sport -- even for such an athletic juggernaut as DLS.

For a program that wins so much, ironically, Brown said winning is not the all-consuming goal of the soccer program, nor any DLS team for that matter.

"I want the boys to be accountable," Brown said. "They need to pay attention to detail and focus. We want them to learn the core values and believe that if they do, they'll be successful. Winning is just a by-product."

Also considered: Cesar Chavez, Ygnacio Valley.

NOTE: We would like to thank our readers for all of the nominations you sent in for the season-ending NCS soccer awards. It is a daunting task to narrow down our selections to just the top few as we recognize there are lots of great players who make contributions on the court that are not necessarily well-documented but mean a great deal to the success of their teams. We salute all of the players that have made this a wonderful season of NCS soccer.