Don’t look now: Here comes Grant. Old-school Pacers race past newish West Park in a rout
There was a telling moment a good 20 minutes before kickoff on Friday night in Placer County in a game that could well decide the Metro League championship.
Members of the West Park Panthers were lined up at midfield for pregame warmups when several players kept trying to peek over their shoulders to see what was coming. Their coaches implored them to look at their own guys and to not catch a glimpse of the visitors.
So there you have it: The Panthers of Roseville knew of the pedigree and power of the Grant Pacers — the championships, the scholarship players, the guys in the NFL who played for the Del Paso Heights program. Then they got a chance to experience it all firsthand. Ranked second by The Sacramento Bee, the Pacers dimmed the spirits of Senior Night for the No. 7 Panthers, registering a sound 48-7 victory on West Park’s beautiful, four-year-old campus.
This was business as usual for 92-year-old Grant, seeking a CIF Sac-Joaquin Section championship three-peat and the program’s 10th overall, including titles dotted across the 1990s and 2000s when Grant was named The Bee’s Team of the Decade under famed coach Mike Alberghini, now retired as scores of his former players continue to lead the charge.
For West Park, the team’s first loss after a 7-0 start can either serve as a wake-up call and a reminder that, yes, there are better teams than theirs out there, or this can buckle them. Don’t count on the buckle as long as coach Jason Tenner heads the program. West Park was thinned by injury and were down its top receivers and tight ends, but Tenner said that was no excuse and that Grant was every bit Grant.
“Our kids listen and read about Grant, and they go, ‘Oh my gawd — it’s Grant!’” Tenner said. “That’s the best team we’ll play all year. They have great coaches and players. We will learn, come back and get better.”
The Pacers looked as good as their nationally recognized drum line sounded in moving to 5-3 on the season. But that’s a misleading overall record.
Grant has no in-section losses. The Pacers have lost to Northern California top-ranked De La Salle, the most decorated team in state history; have a setback to the best team in the Central Section in Clovis East of Fresno; and a defeat to the No. 1 team in the San Diego Section in Lincoln.
Grant now has three wins over Top 15 Bee-ranked teams in Inderkum, Destiny Christian Academy (formerly Capital Christian) and West Park. The brutal scheduling was by design — to challenge and harden a Grant group that continues to grow by the week.
Grant’s defense was strong and stifling against the prolific Panthers, led by The Bee’s 2023 Defensive Player of the Year in relentless rush end Jeremiah Tuiileila. The senior had two sacks and offered relentless pressure.
Grant’s Luke Alexander passed for 206 yards and had touchdown passes of 22 yards to Deangelo Knight, five yards to 6-foot-6 sophomore tight end Zo Edwards and seven to Brandon Lambert, the team’s leading rusher on the season who rushed for 81 yards before hobbling off the field in the third quarter with an ankle issue.
Alexander also left early, in the second half, with an ankle, though sophomore Shiren Crump came in and immediately fired a 35-yard touchdown to fellow second-year player for a 42-7 lead. Tenner, the West Park coach, walked across the field to check on Alexander, the human thing to do. Alexander was down in front of the Grant sideline.
Tenner also respects the Pacers, having experienced them before.
In a 2007 playoff opener, the Tenner-coached Ponderosa Bruins stunned top-ranked Grant. There would be no such stunner this time around, the Pacers proving to be too big and too fast.
The last time Grant played a game in Placer County was in a CIF NorCal title clash at Rocklin, a 41-14 Pacers victory.
Grant graduated a lot of star power off the 2023 team that nearly repeated as a CIF State champion, and the Pacers coaches were pleased with the West Park outcome.
“The time to grow up as a young time is over,” coach Carl Reed said. “Now it’s time to go. That’s a great program (at West Park), and this was for the league championship. We have to feel pleased with how we played.”
This story was originally published October 11, 2024 at 10:51 PM.