What a wild night of football action.
Top seeds fell in Divisions I, II and IV as teams with a combined 33-0 mark were toppled at home.
Goodbye Tracy, which lost to Los Banos, 28-27. Adios St. Mary's which succumbed to Del Oro, 30-29. On to next season for Lincoln, which lost to Sonora, 36-20.
What it means is the strength and depth of the overall fields is superb. There are upsets based on seeding only.
In D-I, for example, No. 7-seeded Pleasant Grove upended No. 2 Vacaville 38-28, but was it really an upset? No, not if you consider how battle-tested the Eagles were coming out of the Delta River League. Pleasant Grove, superbly coached by Joe Cattolico, beat Monterey Trail by a hair, which edged Folsom by an inch.
And no wonder all three are still standing after two rounds of the playoffs. Jalen Saunders returned the opening kickoff 86 yards for a score, ran for a 41-yard touchdown, and Taylor Congdon had two touchdown passes for the Eagles.
Now Pleasant Grove plays at No. 3 Nevada Union, which has played like the top seed in the playoffs, wiping out Napa and Sheldon.
I just talked to Casey Taylor, coach of Del Oro, who raved about his bunch after the stirring 30-29 win at St. Mary's. Bryce Pratt rushed for 154 yards and Max Magleby played well at quarterback, hitting Spencer Butterfield late for a score, and the Golden Eagles had a fourth-down stop to seal it.
Taylor, as good a leader as there is in the section, said his team was not the least bit intimidated by St. Mary's. Absolutely not. For as much as Del Oro had to deal with St. Mary's, the same was true in the reverse. This was no fluke. The better team won. The better team was Del Oro, battle tested from the Sierra Foothill League.
And Folsom beating Granite Bay 42-28 is no upset, either, not with the way Dano Graves has played this season as statistically the most outrageous passer in regional history. He had five more scores to give him a numbing 61 on the season, thanks to a great offensive line and a spread offense that finds a way.
Grant rolled again, as did Rocklin, setting up a showdown of 12-0 cruisers in Round III.
The game will be at a neutral sight, and most likely on Friday. It won't be at Folsom, as the Bulldogs will host Del Oro. It won't be Whitney, as the place can't handle a crowd of 9,000 (maybe more).
It could be Sacramento State, which badly wants this game, though the field is not synthetic (a preferance by coaches Mike Alberghini and Greg Benzel). But it is in very good shape and there isn't supposed to be rain this week. Personally, I'd love to see Del Oro-Folsom on Friday and Grant-Rocklin at Folsom on Saturday, with a monstrous crowd to show off the section product of a very up season in prep football. But could Folsom's stadium handle a crowd of 10,000 or more?
Stay tuned. It gets even better from here.
