Yahoo Finance Big second half lifts Central Catholic to 20th Sac-Joaquin Section football title
Roger Canepa said it before the game and then after, and he’ll say it plenty more if you’re up for some chatter with the gregarious longtime football coach.
“I tell people that we’re the best small-school football program in the state and maybe one of the very best in the country, and we play anyone and we win and we do good things,” said the Central Catholic coach of 12 years.
He’s right about all of it. Canepa delivered that tone well before Friday’s kickoff at Sacramento City College’s Hughes Stadium, and then his team went out and played the part of powerhouse against a much larger school in terms of enrollment, on a bigger stage and in a large venue to keep the dream season alive and kicking.
In outscoring Monterey Trail of Elk Grove 30-0 in the second half, the top-seeded Raiders seized control by doing what Canepa teams generally do: run with fury and defend just as hard. It led to a 43-22 victory over the Mustangs of the Division I Delta League to crown the Raiders as Sac-Joaquin Section Division II championship.
That’s the 20th blue banner for the Raiders, an on-going section record for a program that has run out of gym space and trophy case room to stuff all the hardware into. It’s the first such title in D-II since 1982, and it came against a program that was in its third successive final, the previous two coming in D-I.
Central Catholic won most of its section titles in Divisions III and lower. It’s the fifth such banner for Canepa, who has also gone 4-1 in CIF State football finals and stands as one of the section’s great coaches, leaders and personalities.
The Raiders have won nine consecutive games and moved to 12-1 with plenty of season to go. All section champions advance to a CIF Northern California Regional. At this point, Canepa will take on the 49ers.
With 360 students, Central Catholic has played schools in the playoffs with much larger enrollments, but the football success has led to an elevation in class over the years, and there’s this: no one feels pity for a private school. Canepa understands this. He uses the enrollment figures as motivation, sort of a “smaller-school standing tall” mantra.
Central Catholic grounded away the Mustangs to snap their eight-game winning streak. Aiden Taylor rushed 21 times for 89 yards and had second-half touchdown runs of 7 yards to cut Monterey Trail’s lead to 22-20, 4 yards for a 36-22 lead and 6 yards for the final tally with 5:57 left.
Julian Lopez rushed 18 times for 151 yards for the surging Raiders, and his 21-yard touchdown gave the Raiders the lead for good at 28-22 with 11:07 left to play. His first score, from 7 yards out, tied it at 7 after Daelin Ellis took the first play from scrimmage 80 yards into the end zone for Monterey Trail.
Tyler Wentworth, Central Catholic’s impressive 6-foot-5 quarterback and three-sport star, completed 13 of 15 passes for 113 yards. He had a 15-yard touchdown to Nolan Croasdale with 54 seconds left in the half.
The Raiders’ defense refused to let this become a back-and-forth track meet, certainly in the second half. Brooklyn Cheek returned an interception 24 yards to the Monterey Trail 10 with 9:42 to go in the game to set up Taylor’s score that made it 36-22. Central Catholic also stopped Monterey Trail twice on downs in the second half, much to the glee of a good-sized crowd that made the trip to Sacramento.
All of this for a coach who grew up and played at Sonora and has become a lifer. He’s 58 years old with no visions of stepping down. Canepa now has 264 career victories over head-coaching stops at Los Banos, Calaveras and Central Catholic. He is a well digger by trade but he’s a coach at heart.
“I love football, love coaching, love the kids,” said Canepa, in his 26th season as a head coach and 36th overall. “I never thought I’d wind up as an elder statesman. I’m not going anywhere. We have a lot of young kids. We start five sophomores.”
And this: Winning never gets old.
