‘We are back!’: Grant tops Christian Brothers to win first section championship since 2014
Head coach Carl Reed wasn’t satisfied. His football team, the historic Grant Pacers, owners of seven Sac-Joaquin Section championships and one of the most storied programs in Sacramento, had just finished 0-9 in his first season as coach in 2021.
It was an unacceptable finish. Reed vowed to turn things around.
So Reed spoke to his players, asking them what they needed from the coaching staff to change the culture.
“It was a lot of honesty, a lot of truth,” senior linebacker Dubee Lopa said. “Everyone kept it real with each other, and everyone just took the words in and really applied them to football.”
Said quarterback Jojo McCray, another senior: “We needed to lock in more. We weren’t fully locked in last year.”
The message worked. For the players, Reed and his coaching staff.
On Friday, roughly a year after Reed heeded his players’ advice, Grant rose back to the top. The Pacers won their eighth section championship, beating Christian Brothers 20-12 at Hughes Stadium in a hard-fought Division III final that didn’t go as many expected.
“They wanted to buy in and create a new culture,” a euphoric Reed said of his players. “And that’s what they did. It’s a championship culture. ... We are back!”
All of Grant’s section championships have come since 1991. This was the Pacers’ first since winning the D-II title in 2014. Friday’s victory marked the first section championship for a Grant team that wasn’t coached by the legendary Mike Alberghini, winner of a regional-record 282 games. He stepped down following the COVID-shortened spring season of 2021.
The Pacers were coming off an 80-point performance in the semifinals against Patterson. They scored 64 and 56 in the two previous games. McCray has spent the season spreading the ball around to arguably the most talented group of skill players in the area, including Division-I prospect Kingston Lopa (Dubee’s younger brother), Kyrell Goss-Pruitt and Kenyon Shabazz, along with running backs Joshua Hamilton and Semaj Mafu-Hart.
The expectation was Grant would light up the scoreboard again. But Christian Brothers’ physical defense was more than game. The Falcons sacked McCray four times and were stout against the run, save for a handful of plays that proved to be the difference.
“Great game, great environment. It hurts that we lost,” Falcons coach Larry Morla said. “We’ve been working since January, just like everyone else. We deserved to win. I believe we’re the better team. But we didn’t execute. We didn’t make enough plays. No excuses. We did our best. Everybody has us losing by three or more scores, but we competed.”
Mafu-Hart scored a 22-yard touchdown in the fourth quarter, his second of the game, to push Grant’s lead to 20-12. After a failed 2-point conversion — Grant doesn’t have a placekicker and hasn’t kicked extra points all season — Christian Brothers had a chance to go down and tie the game in the final two minutes.
The Falcons got as far as the 6-yard line. On fourth-and-goal with 35 seconds remaining, quarterback Williams Littlejohn tried to hit a receiver to his left, but it was intercepted by Solomona Malae, who returned it to midfield to seal the victory.
Reed, a Grant alum, deflected credit for his team’s dramatic turnaround.
“It’s about a program,” he said. “We are Grant. We are not Carl Reed. We are not anybody (else). We are Grant and that’s exactly who we are.”
It was clear early it wasn’t going to be a high-scoring affair. The Falcons got on the board first with a touchdown pass from freshman quarterback Deakon Holden to star wideout Phillip Bell. Christian Brothers rotated at quarterback throughout the game, using Holden to make throws downfield, while Littlejohn, a junior, has a better overall grasp of the offense.
Grant got on the board with a 76-yard touchdown from Hamilton. McCray and the Pacers’ high-octane passing attack was being throttled. And there were at least two drops made by Grant receivers that could have changed the tenor of the game.
The Falcons hung tough, getting sterling performances from players along their defensive front, including Mason Vicari, Dustin Regino and Landon Howard, who also had a 2-yard rushing touchdown while contributing at running back.
“It was pretty difficult,” McCray said about trying to get the passing game going. “Christian Brothers had a great game plan coming into this game, too. They were a good team. ... It just feels good to come out with this.”
Grant’s seniors spent their sophomore year dealing with the pandemic, then the coaching change and the winless season in 2021, but they capped their high school careers with a section championship.
“(It took) the coaches and players really being locked in,” Dubee Lopa said, “really appreciating what’s happened to Grant and not just laying over. Everyone was locked in. Everyone bought in and everyone put in the work to get here — blood, sweat and tears to get here — and I’m proud of everybody. It’s all a group effort. We all did this.”
Next up for Grant is a CIF Northern California Regional championship. The bracket will be released Sunday.
This story was originally published November 25, 2022 at 6:31 PM.
