Lua to the rescue: Defensive star’s game-changing play helps Folsom beat Rocklin
Lua DeBerry reached high into the Placer County night and snared an errant pass.
Luckily for the 6-foot-3, 280-pound defensive lineman, he only had to rumble two yards for the interception return, a score that turned the tide in another huge Sierra Foothill League game between the host Rocklin Thunder and visiting Folsom Bulldogs on Friday night.
“I have long enough arms,” DeBerry said. “And when enough adrenaline, that hits you, so you have gotta go straight forward. Even if I made the pick at the 50, I would have just stiff-armed someone.”
Led by DeBerry, Bee No. 1-ranked Folsom’s defense took over in the second half, and the return of 5-star quarterback Ryder Lyons powered the offense to a 34-21 win in the SFL opener over No. 2 Rocklin.
Thunder running back Gered Linder had 60 yards on the first half, but was held to 14 yards in the second. Reeve Slone was effective in the air for the Thunder (3-1) but the adjustment in scheme and attitude at halftime had the Bulldogs (4-1) reasserting their dominance in the Sacramento region, Bulldogs coach Paul Doherty said.
“It’s energy, it’s physicality, and we’re not as big up front as we have been in the past, tons of great athletes, tons of great players,” Doherty said. “I think they’re getting a little bit of a bad rap that ‘the defense is down’ or whatever. Defense keeps getting us stops. Offense gets a lot of attention with our quarterbacks. Not goose eggs (shutouts) all around like last year but that’s not real high school football. Tonight was about temperament and emotion.”
That describes DeBerry and his castmates on defense.
“He’s super athletic,” Doherty said. “He’s a bigtime guy. He’s a (college) Division I player, and we don’t have a bunch of those up front like we did a year ago.”
DeBerry, just a junior, already has five scholarship offers, Doherty said. Those include San Diego State and Sacramento State.
Lyons back in a groove
Rocklin tried to answer an impressive second-half opening drive by Folsom. After missing last week with a sore ankle, Lyons started, played well in the first half and was 5-for-5 passing for 70 yards on the opening drive of the second half. He capped it off with a 26-yard strike to Rob Larson.
And then DeBerry’s long arms changed the game. “We had to shut out all the noise,” DeBerry said. “The loss to Mission Viejo (last week) was on us. We weren’t the best at doing our jobs. We weren’t excited. But we came out today excited and ready to play.”
Coming off a bye week can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how many hours of tape the Rocklin Thunder coaches watched over the past two weeks of the high-octane bark of the Bulldogs offense.
Rocklin even had tape on Brody Rudnicki, Folsom’s backup quarterback who started in place of Lyons last week and tossed five touchdown passes in in a 49-7 win over Sacred Heart Prep of San Francisco. Lyons was on the sidelines in a walking boot for that game. Lyons completed 19 of 25 passes for 192 yards and had two rushing scores.
Rocklin without head coach
Rocklin head coach Jason Adams was recently placed on administrative leave for a verbal altercation with a student during a physical education class. Tim Kenney was the interim coach and had his players prepared and playing hard in the first half.
“When you play Folsom it’s a battle of styles, and in the first half we played our style and kept their offense off the field,” Kenney said. “That screen I called that was the pick-6 was on me. That was a bad play and they scored on it and that changed the tide, and we started chasing points.”
Rocklin owned a 14-13 lead at the half, but Folsom held Rocklin to just 97 yards of offense in the final two quarters.
Rocklin last beat the Bulldogs in 2021, a 40-7 drubbing. That win broke Folsom’s 48-game SFL winning streak. But Folsom beat Rocklin 20-3 in the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section Division I championship that year.
Rocklin plays at Jesuit next Friday while Folsom gets a bye before hosting Sacramento Bee-ranked No. 3 Oak Ridge on Oct. 3.