Oak Ridge’s ‘Touchdown Jesus’ leads win over Elk Grove in battle of prep champions
Maddox Varella already has a cool nickname that makes sense: Mad Dog , a guy who competes with a bark and a snarl.
The Oak Ridge High School junior quarterback has another tag, but it only sticks as long as he keeps his hearty beard.
“The guys call me Touchdown Jesus,” Maddox said, running his hand through his chin growth while also wearing a look of relief. “I kinda like it.”
No. 4 Oak Ridge may have found its signal-caller on Friday night, and it certainly found out what sort of resolve it has against 11th-ranked Elk Grove. The visiting Trojans stuffed a two-point conversion run by the Thundering Herd on the final play to seal a thrilling 28-27 nonleague victory in a meeting of defending Sac-Joaquin Section champions.
Varella and Drew Cowart have rotated at quarterback as first-year coach Casey Taylor pondered which guy to start heading into the Sierra Foothill League gauntlet, which starts with the Trojans taking on top-ranked Folsom next. What binds this team is unity, including the quarterbacks, each of whom wants the job but backs the other as they strive for the same goal of victories.
“It’s a healthy competition and we’re good friends, so that helps,” Varella said. “We respect each other and we both want the team to do well.”
As for the beard, Touchdown Jesus explained, “It’s from all the quarantine, so grow out the hair and the beard. I used to have a chin-strap beard that the guys teased me about so I grew it out.”
Trailing 13-0 at the half to an Elk Grove team that is massive in the trenches with speed backs running the triple-option, Oak Ridge (2-1) found new life with Varella. He engineered a 16-play drive that consumed nearly six and a half minutes to open the third quarter, capping it with a 6-yard scoring strike to Aden Clark to pull to within 13-7.
Zeke Burnett’s second touchdown run pushed Elk Grove (0-2) ahead 21-7, but Reese Catching on the next play scored on a dazzling 75-yard burst for Oak Ridge to tie it at 21 with 6:55 left to play. Varella’s 47-yard touchdown to John Hayward put Oak Ridge ahead 28-21 with 2:30 left before Ethan Archuleta led the frantic final drive, including a 38-yard pass to Gio Bellecci with 15.5 seconds left to the Oak Ridge 8.
Archuleta then found Chris Dodson for a touchdown strike. The Herd went for the win as time ran out, collapsing on Archuletta, leading to jubilation for the Trojans.
“I respect them for going for the win,” Taylor, the Oak Ridge coach, said. “(Elk Grove coach) John Heffernan is one of my coaching buds. I told him it was a helluva game. They have big cats on the line and they took it to us at times. We had to respond. I knew they’d go for two, and it was a great stop by our defense.”
On Catchings, his versatile senior star, “We have to get him the ball. He can do so many things for us.”
And on his emerging quarterback, “Touchdown Jesus! Maddox and Drew are two of the hardest working guys we have. We can win with either one. We went with the hot hand.”
Both teams were coming off an off week. Actually, two weeks for Elk Grove, which had its second game against Antelope scratched due to COVID-19 protocols, and then the Thundering Herd had their scheduled bye last week. Elk Grove has not tasted victory since defeating Whitney 35-0 in the 2019 section Division I final. No teams played in the 2020 fall season, and Elk Grove managed to get in just one spring game while most others had at least five.
Oak Ridge was scheduled to play Lincoln of Stockton last week but the Lincoln Unified School District decided five hours before kickoff that it would not send its team to El Dorado Hills, concerned about air quality that was not an issue by 5 p.m.
“We needed this and it was huge for us,” Taylor said.
This story was originally published September 11, 2021 at 6:07 AM.