Time for finals
Wildcats, Bears football teams prepare for section championships
For the first time in history, both Sonora and Summerville will send a football team to the CIF Sac- Joaquin Section championships, which will take place this Saturday at St. Mary’s High School in Stockton.
Summerville will take on the Hughson Huskies in the Division VI championship game at 1 p.m., while Sonora will take on the Escalon Cougars in the Division V championship game at 6 p.m.
The Union Democrat visited each team’s practices Tuesday night to check in with players and coaches on how they are feeling ahead of the biggest game of their season.
Sonora looks to stop Escalon’s ground attack
No strangers to the section championship stage, the Sonora Wildcats won their most recent Sac-joaquin section title in 2015, when they defeated Bear River 42-24. On Saturday, the Wildcats will be seeking their third section title in school history in their seventh appearance.
They will face the Escalon Cougars, a town on the fringes of the Sierra foothills which has a long history against Sonora. The reigning Division V section champions, Escalon defeated Hilmar 20-13 in last year’s playoffs but before that, in 2019, the Cougars knocked Sonora out of the Division VI playoffs in the semifinals 40-14.
“Practice has definitely turned up a notch since we all know that we are going to sections and we haven’t won it since 2015,” senior wide receiver Chance Pimentel said. “There is quite a bit of history. Usually, previous Sonora teams get knocked out in the third or second round by Escalon. We have always had a pretty good rivalry.”
The Cougars are led in their impressive ground attack by 6-foot, 200-pound senior running back Ryker Peters, who has rushed for a jaw-dropping 1,712 yards on the season, tallying 27 touchdowns. Peters has the sixth-most rushing yards of any running back in the Sac-joaquin section.
When asked what he expected to see from Escalon, Pimentel said it will be a battle of two very similar offenses Saturday night.
“Definitely physical football. They try to pound it down your throat,” Pimentel said. “Their running back is definitely a stud, he is definitely a dog.”
Peters will be at the top of the Wildcats’ scouting report going into the game, but the Sonora defense is no stranger to facing explosive running backs. When the team faced Division III Antelope High School as a replacement for Bret Harte in the second-tolast game of the Mother Lode League season, they got a taste of Division I talent at the running back position in Sacramento State commit Curron Borders.
The Wildcats kept Borders from going ballistic, holding him to only 124 yards on the ground. They will likely hope to contain Peters in a similar fashion, forcing Escalon quarterback Donovan Rozevink to make plays with his arm.
“They have been telling us to tackle low — especially us corners,” senior captain Noah Baker said of the team’s instructions for stopping Peters’ powerful running.
Loading up to stop Peters at the line of scrimmage will mean the Wildcats’ secondary, which has fared well against passheavy teams in Center and Dixon through the team’s first two playoff games, will be tested once again.
The Wildcats have also been passing the ball very effectively over the past few games, relying on efficient passing from junior quarterback Adam Curnow, who went 14-of-16 passing for three touchdowns against Center.
According to Pimentel, improving the team’s passing has been a season-long focus for offensive coordinator Kirk Clifton and the offense, which is finally realizing the fruits of its labor.
“Coach always says that if we can’t throw the ball, we won’t win in playoffs, so we work on that a little bit more than running,” Pimentel said.
In the first year in history both Sonora and Summerville have been in the section championships at the same time, Pimentel and Baker said the community support around the teams has been great.
“It’s great to see both the 209 teams out there playing for a section title,” Pimentel said. “We love those guys over there, they are good friends of mine. It will be nice, both winning a section title on Saturday.”
“I think it’s really cool. Smalltown football, as I have experienced, is a really tight-knit community,” Baker added. “To have the whole Sonora community out here, having your back, it’s really cool representing your town. You know every single person personally, right? So you represent every single one of them.”
While Baker said the pressure of competing on the biggest stage of his career might be a bit daunting in theory, he thinks it will dissipate before kickoff.
“I think at first, during warmups, the first couple of routes that I run there are going to be a few jitters,” Baker said. “The closer we get to kickoff, the more confident we will be, the less nervous we will be. It will just happen — the noise will go away.”
Summerville chases history
When Summerville takes the field Saturday afternoon for the Division VI section championship game against Hughson, it will be only their second appearance in a Sac-joaquin section title game in program history.
The game will be a special moment for a special group of Summerville players who say they have long known this year’s team would be a special one.
The Bears defeated the Huskies 23-14 Sept. 9 in an early preseason matchup which tested both teams. It was one of only two losses the Huskies suffered all season, the other of which was a 49-26 loss to Hilmar near the end of their league season.
Summerville’s coaches rode the team’s players hard at practice Tuesday, reminding them of how rare the opportunity they have is. When the team was showing a lack of intensity during its drills, assistant coach Dave Woods gave them a talking to.
“If you think this week is going to be easy, you are nuts,” Woods said to the team. “(Hughson) has been wanting this game since we beat them.”
The team emerged after the talk reinvigorated, as evidenced by the loud cracks of helmets and pads colliding as the scout defense gave Sonora’s offense some looks near the end of practice.
“I expect to see a very firedup, angry Hughson football team,” Bears head coach Sean Leveroos said of Saturday’s game. “We are impressed by a lot of them. You can tell there is a sense of pride.”
The Hughson Huskies, once a powerhouse in the Trans-valley League, have fallen a short step behind some of their league rivals like Hilmar and Escalon in recent years. The team is looking for a resurgence, according to Leveroos, but the Bears are standing in the way.
“There is an attempt to get back to the way they used to be. In the 1990s, Hughson was
a section-title winner, a loaded football program,” Leveroos said. “There is a great sense of pride that the TVL (Trans-valley League) plays with.”
In their win over the Huskies earlier this year, the Bears brought a balanced attack which featured both successful rushing and passing from their offense. They will need both to outscore a Hughson team which is enjoying the return of 6-foot-4 receiver Malakai Sumter, who had been sidelined with an injury when they last played.
Summerville receiver Dean Trimeloni said he isn’t worried about the return of Sumter, trusting the Bears defense to ratchet things down tight in the secondary.
“I think we are good. We have the deep routes covered, we have good corners … I think it will be (even) better, to be honest,” Trimeloni said.
The Huskies gutted out close wins over both Twelve Bridges and Orestimba to make it to the section finals, proving they can emerge from tightly-contested matches victorious.
With such a big game on the horizon, Leveroos said his coaching staff is trying to keep their players’ heads in the moment, rather than letting them focus on the pressure. They plan to do
that by maintaining the same schedule and processes they have throughout the season, Leveroos said.
“We try to go back to routines and procedures,” Leveroos said. “Not being in school is a blessing and a curse … we are trying to make sure that they are getting proper hydration and proper sleep and just doing as close to the norm of ‘wake up and go to bed’ as you can, especially with it being an earlier game.”
In what has been a whirlwind season for the Bears, full of success, Leveroos said he is most proud of the development the team’s underclassmen have shown — perhaps heralding a bright future for Summerville football down the line.
“I would say that (some) of the greatest growth has come from the players that we haven’t had for years. We tell our seniors that your senior year is all about what legacy you want to leave behind. We tell the juniors, ‘You are to learn how to lead,’ and the underclassmen, you learn why we do what we do. You hope that has a cyclical effect.”