Prep football: Folsom’s wild season ends in state championship loss to Cathedral Catholic
Years from now, they’ll remember the journey, the brotherhood, the joys, the aches and hurts. And how they made history just to get here.
The result wasn’t what Folsom High School expected Friday night in Mission Viejo, but the Bulldogs did not lose for a lack of effort, play-calling or myriad mistakes They lost to a better team, and that’s also part of the big-picture lesson in all of this.
Longtime San Diego powerhouse Cathedral Catholic earned the 33-21 victory over Folsom to take the CIF State Division I-AA championship at Saddleback College. Lucky Sutton rushed for 232 yards on 30 carries, including a 73-yard touchdown on his team’s second play to set a punishing ground-game theme.
Afterward, Folsom players were spent, the rigors of a season that started with July conditioning and an Aug. 20th season opener. All those weeks later, Folsom coach Paul Doherty told his team how proud of them he was, that they should hold their heads high, that there is no shame in losing to a terrific team.
Here’s why they should stand tall: Teams that lose three of four entering the playoffs generally don’t last long. Folsom did. It wound up as the last regional team standing after stunning De La Salle 28-27 to win the Northern California Regional championship a week ago, which halted an 0-20 showing for the Sacramento area’s top programs against the storied Spartans since 2012, including an 0-5 showing by Folsom.
That came a week after Folsom delivered a stirring 20-3 victory over rival Rocklin to avenge an earlier season 40-7 loss to the Thunder that halted Folsom’s regional-record 11-year league winning streak. So, yes, Folsom is now 4-1 in state title games, all since rising to a state-level power in 2010, but Friday didn’t mean this lot was suddenly a loser. Only the scoreboard said as much. Folsom’s Sac-Joaquin Section championship triumph of Rocklin was the program’s eighth since 2010 and 10th overall. The awards banquet figures to be plenty festive.
“We ran into a buzzsaw in Week 7 and that thing hurt,” Doherty said of De La Salle. “We lost our center for the season, lost the quarterback for four weeks. We lost the right tackle for three weeks, we lost a slot receiver to a collapsed lung. ... We dropped three out of our last four. That’s the most football these kids have ever lost in their lives.”
He added, “We got to the section and there you are, right back facing the adversity of Rocklin that took it to us and they played incredible, best football I’ve seen them play all year.”
And finally, “I’m just so proud of these kids. Great season.”
Besides, Cathedral Catholic (12-2) felt it owed Folsom one. The Dons were battered 55-10 by Folsom early in the 2014 season, a regular-season meeting in San Diego in which longtime coach Sean Doyle said Folsom was as great of a team as he’d ever seen. That Folsom team went 16-0 and won a state crown. In 2018, Folsom beat the Dons in overtime to take the CIF DI-AA banner.
Folsom (11-4) remained in it against a team averaging nearly 44 points in large part because of Tyler Tremain. The gutsy senior quarterback passed for 251 yards and hit Austin McMillan for a 2-yard touchdown for a 7-0 lead and then for a 38-yard strike to pull to within 20-14 with 7:52 left in the third.
McMillan had six catches for 91 yards and Rico Flores Jr. had nine for 106. Tremain led Folsom with 37 yards rushing. His twin brother Josh led Folsom with 12 tackles.
The back-and-forth game turned decidedly in Cathedral Catholic’s favor on a 4th-and-inches play with 5:49 left to play. Charlie Mirer, son of former NFL first-round quarterback pick Rick Mirer, took the snap and bulled up the middle, and kept on going through the masses, breaking away for a 28-yard touchdown for the 33-21 lead.
Folsom’s last gasp ended when the Bulldogs were stopped on fourth-and-6 with 3:21 to go, and the Dons ran out the clock from there. That meant more carries for running back star Sutton, who got his first name from his mother after she feared she might lose him after birth. It took the newborn an agonizingly long moment to come to , and she declared his name would be Lucky. Sutton was coming off a 480-yard, six-touchdown effort and was the one player the Bulldogs most struggled with.
The Bulldogs left their campus Thursday morning to a joyous sendoff from members of the community. That moved the players, surprised them.
“A huge sendoff, really cool,” Folsom defensive coordinator Val Laolagi said. “We’re still a town.”
The players and coaches embrace their support because this is not a revered program outside of city limits. Most of that is tied to envy or spite. As recently as 2018, coaches and administrators within the Sierra Foothill League put together an effort to have Folsom removed from the SFL, deeming the Bulldogs too good and with too many transfers.
It’s true that Folsom has become a destination school for football prospects, but the core of the program is still deeply rooted in the feeder/youth programs, including the Tremain brothers.
Folsom will be a force again next season with a host of returners and the lower-level programs peeling off 10-0 seasons. Among the returning starters: offensive linemen Julio Garcia and Lucas Hardeman, tight end Walker Lyons and Flores, the ace receiver. On defense, the returners include linemen Theo Greule, Elijah Guelewhich and Diallo Washington and defensive backs Greco Carillo, D.J. Brown, Joseph Chaves and Slade Wilson.
This story was originally published December 10, 2021 at 11:45 PM.