Prep football: After a 2021 drought, Oak Ridge is 4-0 and expects a long postseason run
Casey Taylor doesn’t just like what he sees in his Oak Ridge High School football team. The Trojans have cohesion, ferocity and skill; Taylor’s wildly encouraged by the potential.
The second-year coach challenged the No. 4 Trojans to meet his expectation of stretching this season to the very end. He is optimistic because Oak Ridge is heavy on experience and has the defense and running game that are paramount to surviving the postseason.
“I hope to play 16 weeks,” Taylor said Thursday night after Oak Ridge blasted North Section powerhouse Pleasant Valley of Chico, 41-10, in El Dorado Hills.
Tayor told his team that took a knee in front of him in the cool night air that the grind doesn’t get easier from here, and the 4-0 start doesn’t mean anything unless the team continues to improve. He added that the road to championships — league, section, NorCal and the state finals — promises to get, “harder and harder and harder. I can’t wait.”
Taylor can speak of playing on the season’s final weekend, having led Del Oro to such championship heights. Oak Ridge won the Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championship in 2019, didn’t play in 2020 like everyone else due to the pandemic and labored through an uncharacteristic 3-7 showing in 2021.
The Trojans are decidedly better than a year ago. They cap nonleague play on Sept. 23 at home against Pitman of Turlock. On Sept. 30 in a Sierra Foothill League opener, Oak Ridge hosts Bee No. 1 Folsom, which was won a league championship every year since 2010. On Oct. 7, Oak Ridge hosts No. 2 Granite Bay, a program with as good of a championship pedigree as anyone.
Oak Ridge has a leader on defense in linebacker Jake Hall and one on offense in quarterback Maddox Varella that echo Taylor’s thinking. They are returning seniors who labored through the lean 2021 season. Both credited the weight room and a newfound commitment to turning things around for the turnaround.
Varella had three touchdown passes against Pleasant Valley, winner of four recent North Section championships and a state championship. Hall scored on a 5-yard rush for a 21-3 lead and had the game’s signature defensive stop late in the half. Oak Ridge shut out its first three opponents — Cosumnes Oaks, Vacaville and Silverton of Oregon — by a combined 182-0 and have now outscored the foursome 222-10.
Varella, for one, is thankful for the D.
“A defense like ours is the greatest gift for a quarterback,” said Varella, known around campus as “Touchdown Jesus” for his long locks and hearty beard. .
Hall dropped a Pleasant Valley runner for 2-yard loss on fourth down with 1:58 to play in the second quarter, and on the next snap, Varella found an in-stride Jadon Anderson for a 42-yard touchdown to make it 28-3. Varella also hit Gavin Molloy for a 28-yard touchdown and John Hayward for a 9-yarder early in the fourth quarter to make it 41-3. Varella passed for 208 yards.
Kaden Koschik broke free for a 41-yard touchdown to make it 14-3 and finished with 95 yards rushing, and Carson Nichols, one of the top kickers in the section, drilled field goals of 30 and 45 yards. Dwight Martin III set up scores with his hard running, gaining 70 yards, and the backdrop of the cheerleaders, marching band and O-Zone student section engaging in their own concert/karaoke made it feel like a Friday setting.
Hall said Oak Ridge has all the makings of a title team.
“We’re so diverse — we pass the ball, run the ball — and we play defense,” he said. “It feels great. Everyone was pissed about last year. We stepped it up in the weight room, beefed up, kept working.”
Taylor said the Oak Ridge defense that includes lineman leader Connder Dasmann, “played great again. Outstanding defense. This team really loves one another. The team chemistry is outstanding we saw that during summer camp, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. We have to keep getting better.”
This story was originally published September 16, 2022 at 7:32 AM.