Folsom, Grant, Rocklin roll into CIF Northern California regional football championships
Jason Adams for years had a large color photograph of the goal-line stand prominently displayed in his man-cave garage dwelling, a reminder of a glorious defensive stop that put Rocklin High School on the state football map as a program to behold.
Adams was the defensive coordinator for the Thunder then. He’s the head man now, rejoicing in stories of old while peeking ahead as a deja vu moment could come roaring back, only this time in Placer County. Rocklin will host the Grant Pacers at 7:30 p.m. Friday in a wildly anticipated CIF Northern California Division 2-AA championship, almost 14 years to the day after the programs last met in a playoff rumble that forever resonates as an all-time classic.
That was in 2009, in a Sac-Joaquin Section Division II semifinal at Folsom. It was a year after Grant secured the most significant prep achievement in regional history, when the Pacers put the entire section on the football map by winning the region’s first state championship. Grant did so by beating Long Beach Poly in the prestigious Open Division, returning to a Sacramento parade as gridiron heroes.
In the 2009 game, Rocklin needed to stop the mighty Pacers four times at the goal line, including a defensive penalty, to seal a stirring 21-19 conquest of a 12-0 outfit that featured four guys who reached the NFL: linebacker Shaq Thompson, safety James Sample, running back Devontae Booker and lineman Vei Moala. Four-year-old Austin Adams was there, the son of coach Adams, and kid Adams at one point as a Rocklin High defensive back star snagged that defensive stand photo and placed it in his bedroom (he now plays at American River College).
Folsom will host 13-0 Pittsburg of the North Coast Section at 6 p.m. Saturday in the Division 1-A NorCal final. Casa Roble and Woodland Christian will also appear in regional finals this weekend.
“I absolutely love that Grant and Rocklin are back at it, because it’s so hard to win section titles and to get this far,” Adams said. “We talk about having pride in high school football in Sacramento. We have (five) teams in the NorCal finals. I want us to do well, Grant to do well, Folsom, Casa Roble and Woodland Christian to do well. I love what’s going on here. It’s great for local football.”
Adams added: “And football is still about teaching discipline and toughness, things you can take with you for the rest of your life. This game can teach you so much. You can’t win without the guy next to you doing his job.”
That was the case in the 2009 showdown against the bigger, stronger, faster and more storied Pacers. But Rocklin refused to yield an inch, lessons that still last.
“This is a very vivid memory that I have of that 2009 game,” Adams said. “We called a time out. The ball couldn’t be any closer to the goal line, to that white line. My back is to Grant in the huddle, and I said that someone is going to make a play. No one said, ‘Shoot! We lost!’ We knew we’d go down swinging. Then we stopped them, and it was, ‘Holy (shoot), we’re going to do something that we’ll talk about for the rest of our lives.’”
Folsom, Grant, Rocklin rise to power
Casa Roble and Woodland Christian are in their first NorCal finals. Casa Roble will take on Soquel in the 4-AA NorCal final Friday night in Santa Cruz County. Woodland Christian will face Orland in the 5-A title game.
For Folsom, Grant and Rocklin, this is not new territory. This has become something of an expectation, if not the norm for Grant and Folsom.
Folsom opened in 1922 and fielded its first powerhouse team in 1962, finishing No. 1 in Northern California under coach Dewey Guerra. The Bulldogs won section titles in 1989 and 1990 under Tom Doherty, then dipped. Folsom rose again in the late 2000s under coaches Kris Richardson and Troy Taylor, men Doherty hired when he was the athletic director. Richardson has been the assistant head coach at Sacramento State since 2019. Taylor is in his first year as head coach at Stanford after coaching at Sacramento State.
Folsom was in the semifinals that same weekend of the 2009 Rocklin-Grant tilt, and it wasn’t yet the Bulldogs’ time. A 35-7 halftime lead against Del Oro fell apart amid a furious Golden Eagles rally.
Folsom opened the 2010 season with a shattering home loss to Grant in front of a national ESPN audience, but the Bulldogs never looked back, rolling the Pacers in the rematch in the D-II section finals. Folsom used that loss to get better. Folsom then won its first state championship in the mud and muck of Carson, and other state titles followed in 2014, 2017 and 2018 with another state appearance in 2021. Along the way, Folsom piled up 10 section banners.
Grant opened in 1931 and fielded good teams in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, when scores of players followed their brothers, cousins, fathers and uncles as Pacers.
By 1992, Grant had fully arrived under coach Mike Alberghini, who won a regional record 282 games for the Pacers through the 2020 season. Grant is now led by two of Coach Al’s former players in co-coaches Carl Reed and Syd Thompson, leaders who champion the Pacer4Life mantra which became a battle cry in Del Paso Heights and can be seen on shirts and hoodies.
Grant won seven section titles under Alberghini, who coached some of the area’s all-time teams and players. His last great team was in 2014, a 14-0 outfit that faced 14-0 Folsom in the 2014 NorCal Division I-AA finals, won by Folsom and quarterback great Jake Browning, now starting in the NFL. Folsom is 11-2 this season with one-touchdown losses to NorCal powers Serra of San Mateo and De La Salle of Concord, teams that are still standing.
Grant dipped in 2019 and 2021, winning one game. It was bad enough that someone planted a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn of Coach Reed’s home in 2021, his first year as head coach. He never wavered. The Pacers never wavered. They kept working, and they roared back to relevance last season, winning section, NorCal and state Division 3-AA championships.
And here come the 11-2 Pacers again, galloping to their own beat with their first section repeat with a shot to extend the season. They are again big in the trenches, fast on the outside and ferocious with running backs Devin Green and Wayshawn Parker.
Rocklin opened in 1992, reached its first section final in 2005 under coach Greg Benzel and advanced to the 2009 state bowl with a 14-0 club before losing a crusher to Servite of Anaheim by three, falling to a private school that had ushered in 12 starting transfers.
By 2011, Rocklin dipped to 3-7 but clawed back. The Thunder went 9-3 in 2014, 10-4 in 2015, 12-1 in 2021 and now stands at 12-1 again, losing only to Folsom in a Sierra Foothill League game. In 2021, Rocklin halted Folsom’s area-record 54-game regional winning streak against section competition.
Cycles happen for public schools, though it hasn’t happened of late for Folsom. It’s also easy to forget that before Folsom became great, the Bulldogs struggled to win back-to-back games in the mid 2000s.
“It’s been a cycle of a public school and the resilience of a community,” Reed said of his Grant program’s return. “We are a product of, when you get the staff in place and players that want to be successful in the classroom and on the field, things happen. Rocklin has been a consistent program with great coaching. We all remember the 2009 game that showed everyone that the greatest team can be beat.”
Grant coaches and players embrace their role in the region as a city school that finds a way. And Grant matters in Sacramento and beyond. In 2015, when beloved Grant teammate and campus leader JJ Clavo was gunned down in broad daylight in a car full of Pacers a mile away from campus, hours before a home playoff game, the Grant community was devastated.
Clavo died in the arms of his coach, Alberghini, after a Pacers teammate rushed the bullet-riddled car back to campus, where he felt safe.
The Grant playoff game was postponed to the following Monday. The Grant community was moved to see representatives of nearly every Sacramento-area football program line the entire football field in support, hundreds of players and coaches in uniforms and school colors united as one to show Grant they were with them, that they felt their pain.
It still brings tears to the eyes of Clavo’s mother, Nicole Clavo.
“We are no stranger to representing the city,” Reed said. “Our pride comes from representing our community and surrounding communities that make us who we are.”
Each team led by young QB
Folsom, Grant and Rocklin are similar in that each is bolstered by on-campus coaches, a lot of superb athletes and youth feeder programs full of kids who grow up wanting to be a Bulldog, a Pacer or a Thunder bolt.
Folsom and Rocklin are backed by affluent communities while Grant players, coaches and alums pride themselves in their gritty North Sacramento surroundings, which leads to gritty efforts on the field. No area program over the last 30-plus seasons has seen more players accept full athletic football scholarships than Grant, though Folsom and Rocklin have certainly had their share in recent years with a lot more coming for all three.
The three programs have a host of young players, so no one is falling off any time soon. Folsom is led by sophomore quarterback Ryder Lyons, who played two years of Junior Bulldogs football and competes like a senior with his power and poise.
Grant is quarterbacked by junior Luke Alexander, who lit it up as a Folsom freshman and sophomore on the lower levels before his transfer. Alexander’s position coach and Grant’s offensive coordinator is Josiah Johnson, who played quarterback for Paul Doherty when Doherty coached Sacramento High. Johnson later became a Folsom assistant under Doherty before his Grant arrival.
At Rocklin, sophomore quarterback Reeve Slone is a product of the youth program in town, and he has dazzled this season with his feet, his decision making and touch passes. He once worked in passing academy sessions with Doherty, who still raves about the kid.
“You could see even when he was in seventh grade that Reeve Slone was going to be a great player,” Doherty said. “Love to see it. And Luke Alexander? I think he threw 100 touchdowns his first two years here, or 80-something. Really good player. Love to see those kids playing so well.”
Doherty was a 24-year-old assistant coach at Sacramento High in 2009 when he watched the Rocklin-Grant defensive stop and the Folsom-Del Oro thriller play out. A Bay Area product, Doherty marveled at what he saw, at how good this region was in football.
“It was as good as it gets and I could see how great this area was — just awesome,” Doherty said.
At the section football championship breakfast on Nov. 20, Rocklin coach Adams closed out his comments by applauding the Pacers, a program he has admired since he moved from his Bay Area roots to Rocklin more than 20 years ago.
He even tried his best to sing the tune that Grant fans have serenaded for years at games: “Paaaacerrs!” Adams is a much better coach than he is a vocalist.
“I love that they do ‘Paaaacerrrs!’” Adams said this week. “I think kids start singing when they’re 5 years old. I love that we’re all still in it. It’s like in college football: It’s better when Notre Dame and USC are good, and to me and a lot of us who appreciate area football, it’s better when Grant is in it.”
And better still when Grant, Folsom and Rocklin are all in it, public schools standing tall in a sport in which the private schools tower across the country.
“How lucky is Sacramento now to get Grant-Rocklin and Folsom-Pitt on different nights?” Doherty said. “If you’re a fan, that’s the greatest thing. It’s great for area football.”
This story was originally published November 30, 2023 at 2:05 PM.