All aboard: Sacramento-area teams head south for CIF state football championship games
.jpg "Grant High School football players, coaches, cheerleaders and band members boarded four buses Thursday morning en route to Southern California for the CIF state championships.")
Four buses departed from Grant High School in Del Paso Heights early Thursday morning, in the dark and in the rain. Destination: The other end of the rainbow.
Or, to be more precise, Orange County, site of the upper-division California Interscholastic Federation State Football Championships. The Pacers seek their third such championship to stuff into a trophy case as their glorious 30-plus year run continues.
On Friday morning, Folsom will round up the troops and board three buses in its quest to cap the season on top for the fifth time since 2010. The Bulldogs have won so many of these that they’ve run out of room below the home press box at Prairie City Stadium to detail them all.
And in Yolo County on Friday morning, small-school Woodland Christian will pile its crew of kids into their transport with the aim to keep a perfect season intact.
“Just one bus,” Woodland Christian coach Mike Paschke said with a laugh. “It may not even be full, but we’ll be excited. It’ll be loud.”
The coaches for the three local surviving programs are up to their shoulder pads in game preparation: Who they are playing, what those teams are about, whom to stop and what plays and schemes to add without having to reinvent the wheel.
The players? They’re too giddy to look that far, the coaches said.
Grant’s caravan includes players, coaches, students, the nationally recognized drumline, the Pacerette cheerleaders and members of the community. Why so many people? Because if Grant football is defined by one thing since its rise as a statewide power in 1991, it’s community. This has always been a one-for-all mantra.
“I have to thank the Twin Rivers School District for getting so involved, helping us all out with planning, logistics, taking care of meals,” Grant coach Carl Reed said. “It’s allowed us to coach, to take all of that burden off of us this week. And we’re excited. We’re going to make SoCal our environment. We’re the visitors, but we’re coming. The players? They’re really into this, wondering, ‘Where are we staying? Who’s my roommate?’”
Grant kicks off against La Serna of Whittier in Los Angeles County in the Division 2-AA contest at 4 p.m. Friday at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo. The Pacers have been chanting or cheering of late that they are headed to “L.A.” Well, close enough. No one is keeping receipts. This is a feel-good trek to add to their legacy.
Folsom will send off three buses with a flurry of cars, vans and the like from families and fans sure to beat them there. The Bulldogs take on St. Bonaventure of Ventura in the Division 2-AA contest at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Saddleback College.
One man decked in Folsom colors beat everyone to Mission Viejo. That is Pat Doherty, father of Folsom coach Paul Doherty. He is a fixture at games as a fan, a father figure, a guy willing to hand out water bottles and tidy up the sideline after it’s all over.
“I’m not sure what he’s doing there so early,” the son said with a laugh.
Probably to scout the field, to make sure it’s ready, to see if the locker rooms are sound, and to check if there is an ice cream shop nearby to take the grand kids.
“I think all of that is about right,” Paul Doherty said with a laugh.
Like Grant, the Bulldogs pulled up some junior varsity players in recent weeks so they can get a sample of what this is all about, to enjoy the ride.
“It’s an immensely invaluable experience for these kids,” Doherty said. “Yeah, our focus includes winning games, but we want to make sure our kids have a great high school football experience, the highs of the highs and the lows of the lows, because that’s all part of it.
“I’ve been around high school football long enough in this state to see that a lot of schools don’t have this opportunity, or have a good football experience. This stuff is special.”
Woodland Christian didn’t have any junior varsity players to call up to the varsity ranks because the school does not field such a team. WC has an enrollment of just 219 students, making the program’s rise to this stage all the more remarkable. The Cardinals and their roster of 35 will play against Banning of Wilmington of LA County in the Division 5-A finale at 3 p.m. Saturday at El Camino College in Torrance.
Very few Cardinals are seniors, and most all of them have been together since youth ball in Woodland. Paschke has coached a lot of these kids since they were 7 years old.
“They’re all my boys, like family,” the coach said.
For Grant and Folsom, reaching a state final is old hat, not quite routine but close enough, and certainly among the expectations of those players, coaches and followers. Those programs are steeped in tradition, have sent bus loads of players to the Division I college ranks and, sometimes, to the NFL. Grant had two down years after 28 consecutive playoff trips, then emphatically bounced back the last two seasons
To be in a state final with Grant and Folsom is also a memory the Cardinals will embrace along with Paschke. A small-school squad mentioned in the same stories as established heavyweights is a thrill, Paschke said. Woodland Christian fields one of three unbeaten teams left in the entire state (Serra of San Mateo and Colusa are the others).
“These kids are on top of the world,” Paschke said. “It’s exciting what the kids have done. Everyone is talking about it here in Woodland. You go to a basketball game in town and people say, ‘Congratulations!’”
Still enough energy to play?
Do the three teams have enough juice to grind out one more game from a season that started with mid-July practices, then included a scrimmage and 14 games?
And yes, even teenage legs can tire in a sport like this. But the coaches for the local teams long ago dialed down their practices. By this time, no one has to prove who’s tough in the trenches or in the secondary. They’re all tough. They have all earned it.
“Oh, we’ve got enough for one more game,” Folsom’s Doherty said.
“Yeah, we’re not done yet,” Grant’s Reed said. “We’ve got one more in us.”
Said WC’s Paschke: “It’s crazy, really. Our practices are still really good, energized. We never hit that wall that teams sometimes do. Our boys love being out there. The coaches love being out here.”
Reed was working the phones to find a high school football field to let players leg out a walkthrough late Thursday, to loosen up.
“We’ll do it in a park if we have to,” Reed said.
Making history, connecting eras
With each of the teams playing a late-afternoon game, the coaches shared the same theme that the earlier the start time, the better. No one wants to sit around all day waiting for kickoff. And coaches are reminding their student-athletes to behave, to not be that guy who peels off for a cannonball leap into the hotel pool.
“As a coach, you hope nothing bad happens, nothing crazy,” Paschke said, adding with a laugh: “After the game, I may go, ‘Parents, please come pick up your child. They’re now you’re responsibility!’”
Grant was the first area team to win a CIF football state championship, doing so on the biggest stage in the elite Open Division game in 2008, a spirited effort over Long Beach Poly under famed coach Mike Alberghini. Reed was an assistant coach on that team. Grant wore its white and gold-trim uniforms in the 2008 game, when all of Sacramento was pulling for the Pacers. Grant will do so again on Saturday, just because.
Grant is a defending state champion, having won Division 3-AA honors last season on its home turf. The Pacers can just the second team in this region to repeat as a state football champion (Folsom won in 2017, 2018).
Folsom was the next area team to bring home CIF state hardware following Grant’s achievement in 2008, doing so in the mud and muck of Carson in 2010 behind dazzling quarterback Dano Graves. Folsom was the last area team to play for a state final in Southern California before this weekend. That was in 2021, after the Bulldogs became the first regional team to beat powerhouse De La Salle with a late drive, 28-27, in a Northern California final.
Folsom lost the 2021 state title game to Cathedral Catholic of San Diego, 33-21, bowing to a team that was a bit more fresh and active.
“We’ve got a lot of energy left this time, but we didn’t feel that way in 2021,” Doherty said. “We were coming off COVID, played six spring games and then 15 more in the fall — 21 games in a matter of months, and we were dog tired. It’s going all right now. We’re in good shape. We’re ready. It’s a good situation for football here in Folsom right now.”
That’s a theme shared by Grant in its caravan and Woodland Christian for its ride south. One last stop for one final game.
This story was originally published December 8, 2023 at 5:00 AM.