Heavy-hearted Sonora wins wild D-VI championship as Bradshaw Christian loses another crusher

The Sonora High Wildcats have played through most of this season with heavy hearts.

Head coach Kirk Clifton, in his first year leading the program, lost his brother, Kraig, in September after a nine-year battle with pancreatic cancer. Kraig Clifton, who was the longtime boys basketball coach at Calaveras High School, would have celebrated a birthday on Wednesday.

Kirk Clifton, a Sonora grad from 1991, hosted Thanksgiving with his still-mourning family this week.

“We had Thanksgiving at my house last night, and my parents and my sister-in-law and all their kids were there,” he said Friday afternoon. “She gave me a hug at the very end, and she said, ‘You’ve got this because your brother’s on your side.’”

It appeared that Sonora may indeed have had some divine intervention on the visiting sideline at Hughes Stadium at Sacramento City in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division VI championship game against top-seeded Bradshaw Christian of Sacramento.

The Wildcats pulled out a last-minute, 23-20 victory to claim the program’s third section title, this a year after losing a heartbreaker to Bradshaw Christian in last year’s playoffs.

“It’s been up and it’s been down, but I’m pretty up right now,” Clifton said.

A back-and-forth contest in the second half saw Bradshaw gain and lose the lead within the final five minutes. Sonora quarterback Eli Ingalls opened the game with a 49-yard run on the first play from scrimmage, and he closed it with winner on fourth-and-inches with nine seconds left on the clock, cementing the title for the Wildcats and leaving the Pride dejected for a second straight year. Bradshaw Christian lost to Hughson 40-39 in the D-VI finals at Hughes Stadium. The Pride returned 18 starters this season, started 12-0 and end their season at 12-1.

“We’re gonna celebrate like no one’s watching,” Ingalls said.

Sonora (11-2) awaits its NorCal opponent for next week. The CIF regional brackets will be released Sunday afternoon.

On the first play from scrimmage, Ingalls broke for his 49-yard keeper down to the Bradshaw 10-yard line. The Wildcats punched it in five plays later as Cash Byington scored on a 4-yard burst to give Sonora a 7-0 lead with just over two minutes gone by.

Bradshaw began a drive from its own 5-yard line to end the first quarter and took five minutes to put its first points on the board. Mateo Mojica ran in a 6-yard score to tie the score at 7-7.

Sonora responded with a 21-yard field goal from Emanuel Garibay to end the half with a 10-7 Wildcat lead.

Wild finish at Hughes Stadium

Bradshaw head coach Drew Rickert was ejected early in the third after two unsportsmanlike penalties on the Pride. The coach was arguing about a chop-block play. His ejection was shortly followed by a pick-6 interception by Sonora defensive back Tanner Navarro to extend the Wildcat lead to 16-7 .

Bradshaw responded with an 80-yard drive capped by a 9-yard score from Nathan Zeppieri to cut the deficit to just 2 points, 16-14, at the 3:36 mark of the third. Bradshaw went ahead 20-16 after a 10-yard score from Brandon Burden with 4:43 remaining in the game.

But that left Sonora plenty of time to march downfield with perfect clock management, and Ingalls ran in the winner for the program’s fourth section championship in eight finals appearances.

The ending of the game echoed last year’s D-VI semifinal between the Pride and the Wildcats. In that instance, Bradshaw came out victorious.

“I looked at the clock and I remember thinking, that’s what (Bradshaw) did to us last year,” Ingalls said. “They marched down on us and scored and won the game. I wanted to do the exact same thing.”

Bradshaw Christian led, seemingly comfortably, in last year’s Division VI championship game against Hughson, 31-13 with five minutes to play in the third quarter. That was before the Huskies rallied for 27 straight points to pull off a shocking 1-point victory, leaving the Pride stunned and heading home earlier than anticipated.

Rolling into this year’s D-VI title game unbeaten with perhaps its finest team in the 19-year history of the program, Bradshaw Christian fell short of reversing its fortunes against third-seeded Sonora.

Nick Pecoraro is a sports journalist and host of “Premier Preps with Nick Pecoraro,” a weekly prep show available on YouTube that recaps games and teams in the Sacramento area each week. Find it at youtube.com/@PremierPreps.

This story was originally published November 29, 2024 at 3:02 PM.