Undefeated!: Woodland Christian Cardinals win CIF state championship to cap perfect season
The formative years for the Woodland Christian Cardinals football program were not kind.
Fielding their first team in 2007, the Cardinals of Yolo County won a single game and managed a 4-32 showing out of the gates. Now, Woodland Christian is adding hardware to a fast-filling trophy case on campus as a fast-rising program that has officially arrived.
On Saturday afternoon at El Camino College in Torrance, the Cardinals capped a remarkable 15-0 season by defeating Banning of Wilmington 23-13 in the CIF state Division 5-A championship game.
Devin Herrera scored Woodland Christian’s first touchdown on a 1-yard effort and then delivered the clincher with a 3-yarder for a 23-6 lead with 5:54 left in the third quarter. The defense did a lot of the heavy lifting, too, a theme for much of the season.
The Cardinals are coached by a Woodland native in Mike Paschke, a one-time football player at nearby Woodland High in the 1990s. Paschke still coaches the youth feeder program, and he’s been the Woodland Christian head coach since 2021, having produced a 36-4 record. Two of his assistants, Juan Ibarra, and Scott Wedding, are also Woodland High graduates.
Paschke and his coaches wore their traditional school-color red polo shorts and black shorts, and they all held a No. 1 finger up for the postgame championship photos. Players wore championship medals and caps.
Woodland Christian is not a program solidified by large player numbers or resources. The school does not field a junior varsity team. Woodland Christian has just 34 varsity players, started just three seniors and lost the services of star senior quarterback Gabe Sanchez in recent games due to injury.
And the Cardinals hit the road north and south to finish off the season. A week after winning its first Sac-Joaquin Section championship at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento, Woodland Christian took a 90-minute bus trip north to face Orland in a Northern California regional final, prevailing 28-0 for the team’s seventh shutout.
The bus trip to Los Angeles County for the Cardinals was an eight-hour trek on Friday, but well worth it.
Sanchez gutted out the game with a sore ankle, which reduced him to just a couple of plays in the section title win over Ripon Christian and a handful of snaps at Orland. His 8-yard touchdown pass to Ethan Jones with 5:00 left in the second quarter put the Cardinals up for a 15-6 lead.
“He’s our leader, a great player,” Paschke said earlier this week. “It’s been a thrill to see these kids all grow and come together. Time of their lives.”
Noah Hinkle led Woodland Christian in rushing with 79 yards on eight carries. Isaiah Hunt had 52 yards and Herrera 47. Shanchez passed for 53 yards and rushed for 26. Woodland Christian had 66 plays and 17 first downs and Banning 49 plays and 11 first downs. Banning was 1 of 5 on fourth down.
The Cardinals rushed for 221 yards on 47 carries, had the ball for nearly 29 minutes, converted 8 of 15 3rd-down conversions and went 3 for 3 in red zone scoring opportunities.
The Cardinals also made regional history Saturday.
The only Sacramento-area teams to cap a CIF State championship weekend unbeaten since the state format was introduced in 2006 are Folsom in 2014 (16-0) and 2017 (16-0) and now the small-school wonders of Woodland Christian.
The Cardinals joined Colusa of the Northern Section as the only two programs to complete perfect seasons in 2023. Colusa won the CIF state 6-A championship in going 14-0.
Besides a storybook season that even surprised the upstart Cardinals, Woodland Christian offered proof that a school with 219 students can not only hang with one of 2,400 students like Banning, but they can prevail. The Cardinals showed the CIF’s “competitive-equity model works more than it doesn’t.
The CIF does not set up state matchups based on enrollment, but instead on everything else.
And this capper: Woodland Christian will enter the 2024 season with the longest winning streak in the state, according to Cal-Hi Sports.
This story was originally published December 9, 2023 at 7:28 PM.