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Superb Sacramento Bee columnist Joe Davidson has been covering, among other things, high school football games for the paper since 1984.
Even he had to shake out his neck, sniff a little pepper and bump his head some after watching Del Oro’s 43-42 Sac-Joaquin Section Division II circus-show of a semifinal victory over Folsom Friday night at Praire View Stadium on the campus of Folsom High School.
“It’s the most unthinkable finish to a game I’ve ever seen,” Davidson said.
Many already consider this the greatest high school football game in Section’s 38-some-year history, which would be appropriate because many consider this the greatest collection of teams the SJS has ever boasted.
It's hard to imagine a better or more improbable game has been played in state playoff history.
The highlights are these:
* Despite featuring primarily a grind-it-out rushing attack, Del Oro fought back from a 42-14 deficit late in the third quarter.
* Del Oro’s punishing back Bryce Pratt rushed 39 times for 327 yards and four touchdowns, including three 1-yard dives, the last with 40 seconds left to pull within 42-41.
* Rather than go for the tie, the Golden Eagles went for two and after a pair of timeouts, Pratt went around left end for the winning points.
“They kept pounding and pounding and pounding and then went outside,” Davidson said. “Brilliant.”
* Folsom, behind an equally remarkable effort from junior phenom quarterback Deno Graves, didn’t give up after the seeming knockout blow.
Graves courageously moved the Bulldogs right down field, from their own 20 all the way to Del Oro 5 when the clock appeared to run out. But the referees put a second back on the clock.
* Folsom rushed the field goal team on the field for a chip shot 23-yard 3-pointer to win it, but after a high snap, a partially blocked kick went high into the chilly night, hit the goal post and bounced backward.
No good.
“The town of Folsom stormed the field,” Davidson said. “The kick itself seemed to take forever to get there."
* Afterward, Graves, with his mom wearing her son’s letterman’s jacket draped around him, was moved to tears, according to Davidson.
“Nobody on the Folsom side could leave,” he said. “They were just stunned. Nobody was claiming they got jobbed. It was just unbelievable.”
Which was the perfect description for Graves, a 5-foot-10, 175-pound athlete supreme.
* He completed 18 of 23 for 324 yards. He had a hand in all six Folsom touchdowns and accounted for – get this! – a staggering 66 touchdowns this season: 52 passing and 14 rushing.
“It’s a shame someone had to lose this one,” Davidson said.
Doubly tough for the Bulldogs (11-2), whose other loss was also excruciating, 22-21 to Division I semifinalist Monterey Trail, which also went for a 2-point conversion, that time in overtime.
To see Davidson's live account of the game,
CLICK HERE.
