‘It’s more than football’: No. 2 Rocklin beats No. 5 Del Oro in annual Shield game
When it was over Friday night, when the celebration subsided and the fight song with the band was completed, the Rocklin Thunder team took a knee and soaked in the words of their coaches.
Team leader Bobby Piland was handed a plaque that bears a special name tied to two schools who are fierce football rivals. They compete in Matt Redding’s honor in the annual Battle of the Shield game.
No. 2 Rocklin handled No. 5 Del Oro 38-3 in a Sierra Foothill League contest in Placer County, which was great for bragging rights, but each Thunder player understood the significance of the plaque and the true meaning of the night.
Redding was a Del Oro graduate. As Rocklin police officer in 2005, he was struck and killed by a drunk driver on Highway 65, not far from Rocklin’s campus. The schools started the Shield game that season. Redding’s parents, Marilyn and John Redding, for years visited both schools before the rgame to talk to players about how precious and fragile life can be, and to not take any of it for granted. Age and living out of state make it difficult for the Redding parents to attend Shield games. The drunk driver was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
“It’s more than just football,” said Piland, a senior lineman and fourth-year starter, studying the plaque. “We know it means a lot to both programs. We’re proud to play in his honor.”
Friday was Senior Night and a night to recognize first responders, including some law enforcement officers who worked with Redding. It was another sold-out, festive crowd on both sides, but Rocklin refused to let it be a competitive game after beating Del Oro 29-21 in a spring opener. The Thunder this time scored the final 38 points after Del Oro opened with a 25-yard Nicholas Verdugo field goal to cap its first drive.
Rocklin took off from there, dominating with a balanced offense and recording five sacks on defense and coming up with interceptions from, in order, Teeg Sloan, Kaiden Baker and Elias Mullican. If this was Rocklin’s first true test this fall, the team passed with the force of a thunderbolt.
Kenny Lueth continued his sizzling season with an 84-yard touchdown strike to Nathan Kent and two 1-yard touchdown dives, the second with seconds to go in the first half for a 31-3 lead that put the Golden Eagles away but came with a price.
Mason Silva’s 29-yard touchdown capped the scoring. Lueth passed for 166 yards, but the 6-foot-5 senior missed the second half with a sprained knee, suffered during his late-half TD. He had an ice pack on his right knee and needed crutches, though he was in good enough spirits afterward to insist it would require nothing short of amputation for him not to finish this dream season.
That ice pack was the only downer of what Lueth called his team’s best outing this season. Rocklin is 5-0 overall and 2-0 in the SFL. Del Oro is 4-2 and 0-2 after falling to Granite Bay last week.
“It’s sore but I think I’ll be OK,” Lueth said of his knee.
The 84-yarder to Kent required Kent to find his footing as he nearly lost balance and hit the turf. He recovered and bolted the final 30 yards into the end zone.
“I thought he was going to fall down,” Lueth said with a laugh.
Kent tried to take that personal, but admitted, “I thought I was going down, too.”
Piland, Lueth and Kent are the core players to the program, each of them also examples of academic excellence as 4.0 students.
“We’re a close team,” Kent said. “Kenny’s my quarterback and my best friend. We need him. We’ve got a lot of great dudes on this team, dudes who don’t start but could at other schools. We’re really coming together.”
This story was originally published September 25, 2021 at 6:03 AM.