Mesa Verde opens new stadium with big win over Rio Linda to keep its playoff hopes alive

The end result on the freshly christened football field Friday belonged to the 2023 Mesa Verde Mavericks.

But all the pomp and pageantry that came with the grand opening of the new stadium on the Citrus Heights campus? That all belonged to the Mavericks who paved the way.

Mesa Verde, a school that opened in 1975, took homecoming to a whole new level Friday, opening a long-awaited and long overdue home field with a 20-6 win over Rio Linda.

Decades’ worth of Mesa Verde alumni attended the long-anticipated opening of the school’s new stadium and formed a pregame tunnel for the 2023 crop of Mavericks, who burst through and defended their new turf. The Mesa alums couldn’t help but beam with pride and excitement during pregame. One was even heard uttering, “After 40 years, we finally got a yard.”

“Citrus Heights has always been that little suburbian, blue-collar area, and people are proud from being here,” Mesa Verde coach Lenny Casillas said moments after being doused with water by exuberant alumni. “(A home stadium) is something that we’ve all wanted for a long time.”

Casillas is a Mesa Verde alum himself from the class of 1995. If it weren’t for throwing on the headset and calling plays on the sideline, he might have been one of the many donning green and orange letterman jackets and throwback Maverick jerseys, lining up to support their alma mater Friday.

“Everybody came out and showed support, which was awesome,” Casillas said. “I knew it was gonna be a lot of people, but I was amazed with a standing crowd. It was just exciting, man.”

Ron Barney, a former longtime coach at Mesa Verde and current athletic director of the San Juan Unified School District, has seen every pitfall and triumph in the school’s long effort to build a stadium. He was one of a handful of proud ribbon cutters Friday afternoon to officially open the school’s new home field and was an honorary captain for the pregame coin toss.

A halftime procession featuring dozens of Mesa Verde alumni was dedicated to Barney and Mike Gebhardt, the late longtime former coach of the Mavericks.

“This is gigantic,” Barney said. “To me, the most important thing is what this is going to mean for all the alumni and student-athletes at Mesa Verde. It’s the completion of something we were told was never going to happen. It’s like magic.”

According to the school’s website, the stadium project was made possible through the San Juan Unified bond program, through which the district has dedicated a significant portion of Measure N funding to build signature projects at each of the district’s comprehensive high schools.

Barney said that ever since the school opened, Mesa primarily has played its home games at nearby San Juan High School, with a brief period of calling El Camino High School’s football field home. For many years, those were the only two stadiums with lights within the district, so several schools shared the two fields, he said.

Mesa won three Sac-Joaquin Section football championships under Gebhardt, who lost a battle to cancer in 2008. The gym at Mesa Verde was named in his honor in 2009.

“He’ll be looking down on us,” Barney said of Gebhardt, his longtime friend. “We spent many a time dreaming about this, and finally it’s here.”

Mavericks end a four-game skid

Green and orange lighting illuminated the home bleachers, and the stadium lights flashed off and on with each Mavericks touchdown Friday.

Both touchdowns came on quarterback keepers from senior Ryan Jorgensen, who opened the scoring with a 7-yard burst to make it 7-0 at the 8:05 mark of the first quarter and touched down again midway through the third on a 2-yard sneak.

“Man, it’s amazing with the flashing lights and all this new technology,” Jorgensen said of his new home environment. “We’ve been practicing on the baseball field, any dirt we can find. We played our games at San Juan. That’s not our home field. This is our home field and we’re gonna crush it.”

Mesa’s defense forced four turnovers on downs, had fumble recoveries from Jake Miller and Eddie Montepeque and an interception from Matt Garcia, quieting Rio Linda to break a four-game losing streak for its first Golden Empire League win.

Montepeque, an offensive lineman, booted two field goals from 24 and 26 yards for the Mavericks, who still have an outside shot of claiming a postseason berth, something that hasn’t happened for Mesa Verde since 2001.

“Getting this game now and going to Dixon next week and Woodland the week after, we could win out,” Casillas said. “I think we might have a good opportunity to maybe make the playoffs.”

In memory of a fallen teammate

Mesa implemented “Tony Tuesdays” during spring and summer conditioning in memory of Tony Rocha, a former teammate who was tragically shot and killed in May 2022.

“We’d do drills in sets of 20 to match his jersey number,” Casillas said. “Twenty gassers, 20 down-ups, 20 burpees. So, we still have that mindset and remembrance of him. And we have little things that he would do when messing around at practice, like sneaking up and pulling your leg hair.”

Casillas said he plans to keep Rocha’s memory alive for future waves of Mesa Verde student-athletes as an example of a great teammate in a tight-knit community.

“He was such a special man to lose at such a young age,” Casillas said. “We want to keep his memory around for people coming in and remind them that life is too short and that you have to make the best of it.”

The girl can play, too

During Mesa’s 82-7 win over San Juan on Sept. 8, senior running back Alyssa Lauriano became the second girl in state history to score two touchdowns in a varsity football game.

“It was pretty awesome,” Casillas said. “She’s out there working hard and she’s earned her playing time.”

Lauriano, who previously played football at San Juan, had her chance to make history against her former school.

“It was my get-back game,” laughed Lauriano, who didn’t suit up Friday due to a knee injury. “It was really exciting. ... I just love this game.”

Rio Linda battling adversity

Quarterback Samuel Taylor scored the lone touchdown for Rio Linda late in the fourth quarter. The Knights dropped their fourth straight game Friday.

Twelve teams will earn playoff berths in each division. Rio Linda entered the week as the No. 11 team in the most recent Division V rankings.

“We’ve hit a bump in the road over these last few weeks,” Rio Linda coach Jeff Freeman said before Friday’s game. “We have not been up to par, whether it’s injuries, dumb mistakes in games, poor blocks, bad snaps. You name it, everything bad that can happen has happened. So, our guys are fighting through adversity right now.”

Rio Linda (3-5, 0-3 GEL) closes its 2023 regular season at Woodland next week and at Pioneer on Oct. 27. Mesa Verde (4-4, 1-2 GEL) will travel to Dixon next week before hosting Woodland in the regular season finale.

This story was originally published October 14, 2023 at 12:50 AM.