November 15, 2015

DVC looks to 'Finnish' strong

Box Score
Diablo Valley College defensive lineman Chris Mulumba has been a Nordic nightmare for Vikings opponents. 
"Chris has been unblockable all year," DVC coach Mike Darr said of the judo expert from Helsinki, Finland. "With all the injuries (to the squad), he hasn't missed a play." 
The Vikings will look for another big effort from Mulumba, the team's leading tackler, when they travel to Santa Rosa Junior College on Saturday in their Bay 6 National Conference finale. DVC (4-5, 2-2) needs a victory against the Bear Cubs (6-3, 3-0) to become bowl-eligible. 
Mulumba, who is 6-foot-4 and 280 pounds with 4.70 speed in the 40-yard dash, has offers from Washington State, Iowa State, Southern Mississippi, Fresno State, San Jose State, and New Mexico, along with several smaller D-I schools. 
He also had an interesting past as a Finland National and Nordic judo champ. He speaks French, Finnish and English, and has served in the Finnish military. Mulumba was born in Finland after his parents relocated to escape the violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Darr said. 
The Vikings hoped to have Mulumba form a two-man wrecking crew with Marc Anthony Hor of Germany in the Bay 6, but Hor suffered a season-ending injury in week three. 
"We just had big loss at the beginning when Marc was injured," Mulumba said of the defensive line. "I think we played pretty good as a unit." 
Impressively, Mulumba has continued to thrive on a defense dogged by injuries. 
"He's versatile enough to play all positions on the defensive line," Darr said, adding that he expects Mulumba to be a unanimous all-conference selection. 
Moreover, Mulumba puts his martial arts background to good use in football, using leverage to find an opponent's weakness. When he grabs a quarterback, the odds are he's not letting go. He has 55 total tackles, averaging 6.6 tackles a game. 
He had a season-high 17 tackles against College of the Siskiyous. He was so dominant against City College of San Francisco that the Rams struggled to find a solution. 
"CCSF was rotating tackles out to yell at them for getting beat every other play," Darr said.