Sacramento Kings, Republic and high school football share spotlight on busy Friday night
The Sacramento sports scene will take center stage Friday night as the city beams with civic pride.
The Sacramento Kings will be back in action downtown and Republic FC will continue its postseason run at Cal Expo while high school football teams across the region battle for conference championships and Sac-Joaquin Section playoff positioning. Friday will also mark the start of Major League Baseball’s World Series.
Home opener at Golden 1 Center
The Kings will square off against the Golden State Warriors in their home opener in a rematch of April’s epic seven-game playoff series between Northern California rivals. The Kings and Warriors enter the season on equal footing as contending Western Conference teams for the first time in recent memory.
The Kings are led by All-Stars and All-NBA honorees De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. They hope Keegan Murray can ascend to star status in his second season. The team bolstered its depth with the additions of Chris Duarte, Euro League MVP Sasha Vezenkov and JaVale McGee, and hope rookie Colby Jones can carve out a role after a promising preseason.
The Kings will host the Warriors, who are coming off a 2022-23 campaign rife with turmoil. Sacramento’s No. 1 enemy, Draymond Green, is dealing with an ankle injury that prevented him from appearing in Tuesday’s regular-season opener against Phoenix, while Stephen Curry returns to Sacramento, where he scored 50 points to beat the Kings in Game 7 of the playoffs.
Golden State also has a new look with future Hall of Fame guard Chris Paul running with the “Splash Brothers.” Paul replaces sporadic guard Jordan Poole, who got punched in the face by Green before last season started and then struggled in the playoffs. Poole was sent to the Washington Wizards in the trade for Paul, who was acquired from the Phoenix Suns for star guard Bradley Beal.
The Kings hope their more powerful beam atop Golden 1 Center will light up the night at the expense of the team that eliminated them from the playoffs, their first postseason appearance since 2006.
Republic fights for USL championship
Sacramento Republic FC reached its regular-season goal of getting the No. 1 seed in the USL’s Western Conference after improving the roster with offseason additions like Russell Cicerone, Arnold Lopez and Juan Sebastian Herrera. The Republic took care of business in the opening round of the playoffs Saturday with a 1-0 victory over New Mexico United, setting up a showdown against last season’s USL champs, San Antonio FC, in the conference semifinals.
A win over No. 4 seed San Antonio would send Sacramento to the conference finals against the winner of Orange County SC and Phoenix Rising FC, two sides that beat Republic FC in late August while the team was jilted by injuries.
Heart Health Park at Cal Expo is considered one of the best home-field advantages in the USL — the second-tier league below the MLS — and is regularly atop the league in attendance. But Friday’s Kings game and a busy night in high school football could lead to a smaller crowd than usual. A concert scheduled at their home venue Saturday moved the game to Friday, putting it up against the other sports.
One big backstory in Republic FC’s bid for a second USL championship since 2014, when it won the title in its first season of existence, is what’s happening at the ownership level. The Bee reported in July that Canadian investor Belinda Stronarch is working to elevate Republic FC from USL to the MLS, which is expected to take significant investment.
Officials say Sacramento has long been ready to break ground on a new stadium in the Rail Yards just north of downtown, but the team has waited to learn its MLS future before finalizing plans.
In May, the MLS awarded an expansion franchise to San Diego, which is expected to begin play in 2025, putting the league at 30 teams. The ownership of Mohamed Mansour and the Sycuan Tribe, the first native American tribe to have an ownership stake in an American pro soccer team, put up a record $500 million expansion fee.
It’s unclear if Stronarch would have to pay a similar fee to elevate Republic FC to to the MLS. However, it’s worth noting expansion fees have increased from the range of $70 million to $100 million when New York City FC and Orlando City SC joined in 2015. Also unclear: whether another expansion team would be required to join Sacramento in order to bring the league to evenly numbered 32 teams.
Either way, Republic FC believes the momentum created by another USL title would only help its chances at jumping to the MLS, underscoring the importance of this year’s playoff run.
Prep football teams jockey for position
Friday night marks the final night of the regular season for high school football teams throughout the region, so league championships and playoff berths will be on the line. The Sac-Joaquin Section will unveil playoff brackets for all seven divisions on Sunday.
The games with the top billing are in the Sierra Foothill League, where local powers Folsom, Oak Ridge and Rocklin — the Bee’s three highest-ranked teams — are playing for the league title and top playoff seeds.
Folsom (7-2, 4-0 SFL) hosts Granite Bay (5-4, 2-2) with a chance to clinch the league title with a victory. A loss would put Rocklin (8-1, 3-1) and Oak Ridge (8-1, 3-1) in position to tie Folsom for the league championship, though Folsom has wins over both, which will be factored into playoff seeding.
Elsewhere, the defending Division III state champion Grant Pacers will play Laguna Creek at Consumnes River College. The game is expected to pack the stands at the junior college venue in Elk Grove. Both teams are 7-2 overall with 4-1 records in the Metro League standings.
In other big games, Christian Brothers (6-3, 4-1 Capital Athletic League) hosts Vista Del Lago (8-1, 5-0); Monterey Trail (6-3, 5-0) can wrap up the Metro League and earn a top-four seed in the Division I field with a win over River City (6-3, 3-2); and Jesuit (8-1, 5-0 Delta) can land a top seed in Division II by beating Davis (2-7, 0-5).
