Nevada Union running back tandem leads blowout win over Christian Brothers
A year ago, the bus that hauled the Christian Brothers Falcons football team chugged its way up Interstate 80, through Placer County, and then it broke down.
It was 110 degrees, the sun beating down and not a cool smile in sight, but the 90-minute stall was worth it. Christian Brothers arrived on the Grass Valley campus shortly before kickoff and then beat the host Nevada Union Miners by five touchdowns.
On Friday night in Oak Park in a nonleague rematch of two of the most storied programs in the greater Sacramento area, it was the Nevada Union team bus that encountered a snag. This journey wasn’t nearly as troublesome as this rig had difficulty maneuvering throughout the tight confines of a full parking lot.
Behind a punishing ground game and a stout defense, Nevada Union earned a measure of sweet revenge, rolling Christian Brothers 52-20 behind the engine that is fueled by two stout 6-foot-3 runners. Rhyder Eelkema and Brandon McCallum each eclipsed 100 yards by the middle of the third quarter as the offensive line blasted holes for the Miners, and those two backs would have fit in nicely with any of the famed NU teams of yesteryear.
Nevada Union won CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championships in 1993, 1994, 2005 and 2009 when running the ball and defending the ball were program foundations under coach Dave Humphers.
Brad Sparks has been a coach with the Miners at different levels for years, the head coach of the varsity troops for the last eight seasons. He embraces the tradition of his program and the pillars of what this sport is all about.
“It shouldn’t be called football,” Sparks said. “It should be called blocking and tackling, because that’s what this sport is all about. “We didn’t do that in our first game, and we got beat.”
Northern Section power Chico belted the Miners 42-13 in a season opener, but Nevada Union responded with a 49-0 win over Bella Vista and backed that up with an even better effort against a speedy Christian Brothers program steeped in tradition since the 1950s.
Eelkema caught a 78-yard touchdown from JC Harris to open the scoring and then scored on runs of 3, 11 and 25 yards. McCallum had touchdown runs of 1 and 22 yards to go with 251 yards rushing as the Miners pounded away against a young Christian Brothers defense.
Deakon Holden, a fourth-year varsity starting quarterback for Christian Brothers, had three touchdown passes, though the Falcons fell to 0-3.
Sparks pulled out several players from the Christian Brothers line in the postgame handshake to congratulate them on their spirited play. He was on the other side this score a year ago against the Falcons and can appreciate the hard knocks of a hard sport.
“You’ve got to respect winning,” Sparks said. “Those are a bunch of great kids at Christian Brothers. Tonight, we were the better team.”
Sparks received high fives and hugs from players after he rallied them up in a spirited postgame talk. In that talk, he reminded that as sweet as this victory was, the team hasn’t accomplished anything yet.
Not with Casa Roble looming, then North Coast Section power Antioch to cap the nonleague part of the schedule. And then the Foothill Valley League schedule that includes Sacramento Bee-ranked teams in Twelve Bridges, Roseville and Placer, in addition to tough teams in Del Campo and Yuba City.
Nevada Union was a regional powerhouse from the late 1970s through 2009, when the Miners went 13-1. In part due to a big drop in enrollment and because down cycles happen at public schools, the program bottomed out. The Miners went 0-10 in 2013, 3-7 in 2014, 1-9 in 2015, 2-8 in 2016, 2-8 in 2017 and 3-7 in Sparks’ first season of 2018. Since 2021, NU has reached the playoffs four consecutive seasons, though the Miners are eager for a return trip to the section finals.
Sparks told his group afterward if they were starting to “believe.” Their cheers provided the answer.
In an effort to embrace its past, the Miners this season went back to the uniform and helmet design used when Nevada Union High opened its current campus in 1961. The new digs look a lot like Notre Dame with white pants, white jerseys and strikingly gold helmets, a far cry from the iconic winged helmets of the football program’s heyday.
“The hardest thing with our program is trying to learn how to win again, but we’re getting there,” Sparks said.
Christian Brothers coach Larry Morla called this matchup “a great battle between two historic football schools.” After the game, he said the Falcons can only grow from here, nursing a winless start with rival Jesuit looming in the annual Holy Bowl next Saturday, Sept. 13, at Hughes Stadium.
“We’ve got so many young guys,” the coach said. “They wore us out. You can’t give up three early touchdowns to a running team.”
This story was originally published September 5, 2025 at 10:50 PM.