NorCal In State Spotlight for Week 3

With two of the top teams in Southern California playing on the road up in Northern California on Friday and with state No. 1 Santa Margarita playing a team it was supposed to crush (it did) and with No. 3 Corona Centennial on a bye, it was a rare night in which pretty much all of the most intriguing matchups in the state were focused on the north. We went to the matchup at Folsom where the state No. 9 Bulldogs took down No. 6 Mission Viejo in a reversal of what happened when the two teams played a year ago down south. We also have some first reactions of No. 2 St. John Bosco’s win at Pittsburg, No. 7 De La Salle’s win over Cardinal Newman and No. 10 Fresno Central’s win over Oak Ridge.

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Is it as simple as it can be very hard for a high school football team to play a top opponent more than 450 miles from home? That was the question both head coaches at Folsom and Mission Viejo were asked after the host Bulldogs posted a 35-21 win over the Diablos at Folsom on Friday night just one year after Mission had dominated Folsom, 53-14, in a matchup played in Orange County.

“Last year they had to come to us and yes it is hard,” said Mission Viejo head coach Chad Johnson, whose team also didn’t play well last year on a long road trip to McCallie of Chattanooga, Tenn. “We came up on Wednesday and it just took us awhile to get going.”

“For sure the travel can be hard and tonight was a lot different than last year,” said Folsom head coach Paul Doherty. “Our plan last year to go there was to fly down earlier but the district didn’t approve it. Instead, we had to come down later and as a result we had a lot of dead time at our hotel before the game. We came out flat. We are used to traveling down there for state but a lot of those details are handled for us.”

With the win, Folsom erased any negative thoughts about an overtime win it had to pull out in its season opener last week against Cardinal Newman of Santa Rosa. Everything on offense was clicking much smoother and in beating Mission Viejo it was a win over one of the elite teams from the CIF Southern Section.

How elite? Johnson’s program had a win last season over Santa Margarita of Rancho Santa Margarita, the eventual CIFSS D1 and CIF Open Division state champions. The Diablos also handed Folsom its only loss last season and entered this week’s game at No. 6 in the overall state rankings. They had won their first two games 55-17 over Chaparral of Temecula and 77-12 over St. Paul of Santa Fe Springs. Folsom has never been in a CIF Open Division state final and this particular win, if the team goes on to win another CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D1 title and has an unbeaten record at that point, could prove to be the one that nets the Bulldogs that elusive berth.

Like last year when the Bulldogs had Ryder Lyons at quarterback, they would not be lacking at that position compared to any of the major powerhouse teams of Southern California. In fact, with Lyons then and senior Brody Rudnicki now, Folsom would probably have the better quarterback compared to all of the SoCal teams.

Rudnicki, committed to Cal, had a special night against the Diablos. He ran the ball on designed plays a lot, scrambled out of pressure to pick up yards a couple of times and we had him with 25 carries for 119 yards and three touchdowns. On passing plays, as Folsom continued to be without UCLA-bound receiver Rob Larson (who will be out for several more weeks with a hamstring injury), Rudnicki learned early in the game not to throw it on the outside where Mission Viejo’s cornerbacks would do the most damage (Jordan Hicks is one of the top junior DBs in the state) and found a lot of room working the middle of the field. In our notes, we had him 16 of 29 passing for 248 yards and two scores.

Without Larson, Rudnicki began to develop some chemistry in this game with senior Travis Beatty, who had nine catches for 129 yards and sophomore Jaden Angel, who stepped up to have five catches for 68 yards and two scores.

“We treated this a lot like a championship game and he lit it up, just like he did in the state final,” Doherty said in talking about Rudnicki, who rushed for four touchdowns and passed for two in the 42-28 win in the CIF D1-AA championship vs San Diego Cathedral Catholic. “Angel played out of his mind as a sophomore and I thought our two RBs (Bronson Bambino and Osias Bolton) also had good games.”

Mission Viejo’s defense couldn’t get pressure on Rudnicki like it did last year vs Lyons. The Diablos also couldn’t get key stops when they had to, including on a fourth down play on Folsom’s first series of the game. The Bulldogs are known for not punting, but even for them not punting on fourth and four from their own 29-yard that early in the contest was surprising. Rudnicki completed a 22-yard pass to Beatty, which set up Folsom to score its first touchdown on a 21-yard pass to Angel.

Mission Viejo did not do the same thing on fourth and four from its own 26-yard line on its first possession. After receiving the punt, Folsom continued to press its early advantage with a 78-yard, 12-play drive. Rudnicki capped that series with a 5-yard scoring run.

The Diablos went three-and-out on their second series as well, but forced Folsom to do the same. Instead of getting the ball back, however, the ensuing punt was dropped and recovered by the Bulldogs. Folsom didn’t convert that turnover into points when Rudnicki had the ball stripped from him on a run that was recovered by Mission’s Cash Gervase.

A third straight Mission Viejo series that didn’t net a first down was then followed by Folsom’s third touchdown drive, which began on two straight completions by Rudnicki and ended on a 2-yard TD run by him.

The Diablos finally got some traction on offense late in the second quarter with a 17-yard run by Carson Vandermade. He ended the 61-yard drive on a 1-yard TD run. The 21-7 score didn’t last long, though, as the Folsom offense motored back down the field and scored with 42 seconds left before halftime on a 8-yard TD pass from Rudnicki to Angel. The Folsom QB hit on five straight completions during that series to Angel and Beatty with just a 6-yard run mixed in.

Trailing 28-7 at the break, Mission Viejo found success running the ball with Vandermade on the first series of the third quarter. The Diablos couldn’t punch it in on a fourth-down play at the goal line (the coaches believed it was a touchdown) and the defense wasn’t credited with an end zone sack of Rudnicki that was very close. After Folsom did eventually punt, the Diablos scored on a 29-yard TD pass from sophomore Brett Burnor to junior Jeremy Bonhomme.

It then didn’t take long for Mission Viejo to score again. The defense came up with a fourth down stop of the Bulldogs on the Folsom 46-yard line and then on the next play Burnor went deep to senior Jack Junker to the 6-yard line. Sophomore Wyatt Boardman then took a handoff for a 6-yard TD run and the Diablos were back in the game with just a 28-21 deficit and still with 10:06 remaining in the game.

Folsom could have further folded at that point, but the offense came through with what ended up as the final scoring drive of the night. With Rudnicki running the ball along with Bambino and with a couple of passes mixed in, the Bulldogs drove 80 yards in 11 plays and scored on a 6-yard run by Rudnicki with 3:58 left. The win was essentially clinched on Mission Viejo’s first play following that touchdown on a diving interception along the sidelines by C.J. Wallace, the same player who had a huge kickoff return touchdown in the win vs Cardinal Newman.

“We dropped a punt, we don’t get that fourth down stop and that’s 14 points right there,” Johnson said. “They got us tonight. I have to credit their defense, too. They came out in a completely different structure than we thought and it took us awhile to adjust. We just have to regroup and come back strong next week (against Lincoln of San Diego).”

In other major games played in Northern California on Friday night

St. John Bosco (Bellflower) 26, Pittsburg 14

The state’s No. 2 ranked team behind Santa Margarita won its second straight game after losing in the season-opener at Bishop Gorman of Las Vegas and beat Pittsburg despite trailing 14-0 in the first half.

The Braves, who played up north two years ago at Serra of San Mateo, got a taste of Pitt’s Friday night home atmosphere as 5,000 fans were reportedly packed into the grandstands with the world famous Pirate band doing its part in invigorating the crowd as well as the media on the sidelines.

Two early turnovers by the Bosco offense were converted into touchdowns by the Pirates, both of which were TD passes from junior JaVale Jones, first to Deveon Wilson and then to Sergio Montes. Bosco had gained momentum going into halftime, however, including a blocked punt return TD by Dorian Franklin, and was only down 14-13 at the break.

In the second half, the Braves’ defense suffocated the Pirates on every possession. The offense took the lead at 20-14 on a 29-yard TD pass by junior Koa Malau’ulu to Kuika Moaalii and then put it out of reach on a TD run by Maliq Allen in the fourth quarter. Pittsburg (No. 12 in our state rankings coming in) fell to 1-1 after a season-opening win over Monterey Trail of Elk Grove. The bigger picture goal of the Pirates playing Bosco in a more competitive game this season that could help them in a probable future matchup vs De La Salle had to be regarded as successful.

De La Salle (Concord) 42, Cardinal Newman (Santa Rosa) 3

There was some speculation that the Cardinals were going to come in and present a major challenge to the Spartans after they had battled Folsom into overtime before losing last week in the season opener for both squads. Instead, the host Spartans ran up and down their home field for a dominant win.

Obviously, with the comparative scores, DLS (No. 7 in the state) will be and should be ranked ahead of Folsom in the NorCal Open pecking order. The Spartans do have a game coming up, however, against Corona Centennial (No. 3 in state) and that’s when Folsom having a win over Mission Viejo could come into more importance (if Centennial wins).

Junior speedster Damari Dean hauled in scoring passes of 79 and 24 yards from Jaxon Loftin and senior running back Duece Jones-Drew had a back-breaking 53-yard punt return TD in the third quarter that broke the game open for De La Salle. Newman (No. 22 in the state) took a 3-0 lead on a 45-yard field goal by Devon Taylor after the Spartans fumbled on their first series.

Central East (Fresno) 20, Oak Ridge (El Dorado Hills) 14

In a game played just up the road on Highway 50 in El Dorado Hills from where we were at in Folsom, host Oak Ridge didn’t have the magic at the end like it did in its first game at Argyle, Texas. The Trojans (No. 17 in state) fell to the Bengals (No. 10), who beat their second straight top three team from the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section (Folsom No. 1) after we saw them demolish Grant of Sacramento in their season opener, 42-12.

According to reports from Gold Country Media, Central East took a 20-7 lead with five minutes left on a 43-yard TD pass from Jelani Dippel to Titus Thomas. Oak Ridge responded with a 6-yard TD pass from Nick Johnson to Nate Anzelc with 2:45 to play and got the ball back with a chance to win at the end on a TD plus PAT. The Trojans’ attempt was stopped on four straight incomplete passes from the Central East 17-yard line.

Mark Tennis is the co-founder and publisher of CalHiSports.com. He can be reached at markjtennis@gmail.com. Don’t forget to follow Mark on the Cal-Hi Sports Twitter handle: @CalHiSports