Bee’s Best prep football: No. 6 Granite Bay welcomes championship coach Cattolico
This week, we’re blowing up with prep two-a-days. We’re publishing two previews a day as we dive into the top 10 of our rankings for high school football in the Sacramento area.
No. 6 Granite Bay Grizzlies
City: Granite Bay
School opened: 1996
League: Sierra Foothill
Division: I
Enrollment: 2,060
2021 spring record: 4-2
Coach: Joe Cattolico
Outlook: Starting at a new school is not unfamiliar territory for Joe Cattolico. He helped open Pleasant Grove in Elk Grove in 2005 and guided them to a Sac-Joaquin D-l Section championship over Monterey Trail in 2010. Cattolico also had stops at Sheldon and, most recently, Roseville.
The new Granite Bay coach has been preparing for an opportunity like this to open up. The Sierra Foothill League is a gauntlet and Granite Bay has been a powerhouse since opening in 1995.
“There’s always some good challenges, but there’s always some excitement and some positives and good opportunities (coming to a new school),” Cattolico said. “It’s exciting. It’s always fun to work with kids and we have a good school, coaching staff and kids.”
He added, “There’s obviously some good things in place program wise. We always tell the kids one of the neat things about football is it’s not the Tour de France. You don’t start off ahead just because you had a good year last year. There’s good community support (here).”
Granite Bay went 4-2 during the spring football season. The only two losses were to Folsom and Rocklin, which will challenge Granite Bay for a league title.
The Grizzlies quarterback this season will be 6-foot-3 senior Noah Mitcheom. He spent time last season as the backup. Key players who saw significant play time from last season include linebacker Zach Annis, tight end James Stabbert, wide receiver Josh Coibion and defensive back Dom Soares.
“We have a good group coming back,” Cattolico said. “They had a good team last season. Like most schools, they graduated some good players, but we have some good players coming back.”
The Grizzlies open the season up on Friday against Vista del Lago. Other nonconference games are against Davis on Aug. 27, Jesuit on Sept. 3 and Vacaville on Sept. 10. The SFL opener is against Del Oro on Sept. 17.
“Our schedule both in and out of the league is very challenging, which is good,” Cattolico said. “The challenge is can we improve from week-to-week and (stay) healthy. Most of us are in a world right now where less kids (are coming out) to play football than we used to (have). That becomes a challenge — staying healthy against that competition, but everybody is in that boat.”
This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 5:00 AM.