Bee’s Best prep football: No. 20 Woodcreek football hoping to build on winning campaign
The Sacramento Bee will unveil our Top 25 football rankings from No. 25 to No. 1, a team every weekday, right up to the Aug. 19 kickoff.
No. 20 Woodcreek
City: Roseville
School opened: 1994
League: Capital Valley Conference
Division: II
Enrollment: 2,127
2021 record: 7-4
Coach: Brad Hunkins
Outlook:
The Woodcreek High School Timberwolves have had just three winning seasons since 2004, one of which came last season when the team advanced to the playoffs on the strength of a 6-0 start.
But coach Brad Hunkins’ club backed into the postseason by losing three of its last four games in the Capital Valley Conference before succumbing in the first round of the playoffs to Monterey Trail, 39-23.
Those in-conference defeats came by 4, 7 and 3 points, giving Hunkins optimism a program that isn’t known for winning a chance to be in the playoff mix again this fall.
“We have to learn how to win, and part of that is learning how to win those close ones,” Hunkins said. “We definitely got some pretty good experience from those games last year. What happened is we struggled when the lights were really bright.”
With training camp beginning Monday, the emphasis for Hunkins’ program has been all about finishing, which isn’t something the Timberwolves have been known for over the years. The good news for them is the team isn’t relying on the coaches to relay that message.
“This is all driven by the kids. They set the goals, they set the standard,” Hunkins said. “We team them how to do that, but they take the ownership portion of it.
“So for us, our leadership council put it on our team to say look, we need to finish so that we can have the success we all talk about. And that was the emphasis from January when we started lifting, through when we go on the field in May through the summer and all the conditioning and everything we did. It was all about finishing — finishing the drill, finishing the block, finishing the tackle, finishing the break on the ball. Anything we did it was about finishing. And when we didn’t, the kids took care of it.”
Woodcreek had four seniors that received All-Metro honors last season: linebackers Mitchell Sarmento and Skylar Lockard, receiver Nicolai Nielsen and do-it-all quarterback Garrett Krupp, who accounted for 24 passing touchdowns and seven rushing scores to lead the team.
Replacing Krupp will undoubtedly be the biggest challenge. Hunkins said two players will spend the coming weeks competing for the starting quarterback job: Austin Katapodis and Connor Rojas, neither of whom have much experience at the position at the varsity level.
“Both have their strengths,” Hunkins said. “They’re both fearless. They’re both athletic. They both like to run the ball which helps us in our offense, and they do a really good job of controlling the huddle. So, the both of them do really well. Connor’s a really good defensive back for us, so he’s got a little defense and offense. Austin is purely a quarterback.”
Hunkins is entering his eighth season as coach and is hoping to have back-to-back winning campaigns for the first time. It won’t be easy after finishing third in Capital Valley Conference with a 3-3 record in league play going against programs like Antelope, Yuba City and Inderkum.
Hunkins’ goal is to build sustainable success like that of the team Woodcreek lost to in the playoffs, Monterey Trail, which is led by longtime coach E.J. Ewing and went all the way to last season’s Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship.
“We respect the heck out of coach Ewing at Monterey Trail, and how he has run that program and how he has built it from scratch, and has a belief system and a scheme that he lives and dies by.” Hunkins said. “That’s what we try to emulate.”
Monterey Trail, of course, is a powerhouse. Woodcreek is a long way from reaching that status, but another winning season wouldn’t be a bad start.
