Sac-Joaquin Section – VACAVILLE INSIDER

Elk Grove throws out passing

Ryan Smith coaches Vacaville High’s defensive backs, so he might as well take this week off as the Bulldogs prepare to face Elk Grove on Friday in the Sac-Joaquin Section Division II playoffs. Anyone who has followed the Bulldogs in recent seasons knows the Thundering Herd throw the ball as often as a fat guy sees his shoes.

Elk Grove’s David Hale has thrown 10 or more passes in three games this season and completed more than four just once. The junior went 9-of-12 for 67 yards and a touchdown in a 45-7 loss to San Ramon Valley on Sept. 8. That left the Thundering Herd at 1-3, but Elk Grove recovered with five consecutive wins to become eligible for the playoffs.

The section has straightened out its playoff format by using enrollment to determine which teams belong in one of the seven divisions. Teams had to win a minimum of four games to advance to the playoffs except in Division IV, which had 10 teams qualify and filled out the 12-team bracket by adding two teams based on CalPreps rankings.

Dixon and Ceres made it with 3-7 records. The ninth-seeded Rams, who started 0-5 this season, will play Rosemont in Sacramento on Friday. The winner will advance to the quarterfinals and face No. 1 Twelve Bridges in Lincoln on Nov. 10. Twelve Bridges opened in the fall of 2021.

Vacaville is the No. 9 seed in Division II and will travel to Elk Grove. This will be their fourth postseason meeting in six years. There were no playoffs three years ago when the spread of COVID-19 turned the 2020 fall season into five games in the spring of 2021.

The Bulldogs would rather not be reminded that they lost the first three playoff meetings with the Thundering Herd. The 2018 loss was respectable with Elk Grove scoring four touchdowns in the second quarter on its way to a 28-21 victory. A year later, Elk Grove ran for 392 yards and six touchdowns in a 52-29 rout. Elk Grove was 0-of-2 passing.

Elk Grove’s Ethan Archuleta did more damage with his legs than his arm in 2021. Archuleta rushed for 242 yards and three touchdowns as the Thundering Herd gained 559 yards on the ground in a 52-48 victory. Archuleta also completed one pass for 24 yards.

Quarterback Ryan Vaughan kept Vacaville in the game by going 28-of-42 for 336 yards and two touchdowns. The senior also ran for 47 yards and a score. Rare is the game in which the Bulldogs have nearly twice as many passing attempts as rushing (24).

Vacaville has had three consecutive seasons with 200 or more passing attempts. To put that in perspective, the Bulldogs had more than 150 in a season just once from 2010 to 2019. Elk Grove has not had more than 85 attempts in a season since 2016, when Jayden Machado completed 159 of 245 passes for 2,294 yards and 35 touchdowns.

Just call him section champion

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Ten of the 441 wrestlers in the Sac-Joaquin Section Masters tournament have first names beginning with G. There was Gabe, Gabriel, Gavin, Gilberto, two Giovannis, Gordan, two Grants and Guryann. It sounded as if Vacaville High had one among its 14 competitors because of the cheers for “G” whenever Thomas Sandoval was on the mat.

Vacaville coach Armando Orozco admits he usually gets confused when he looks at tournament brackets and cannot find his 182-pound entrant. There is never one with a first name of Geronimo, which is Sandoval’s middle name. Nothing against the junior’s parents, but Thomas has been tossed aside like many of their son’s opponents.

The five who faced Sandoval at the Masters meet know how that feels. Three pins propelled Sandoval into the semifinals, where he defeated Oakdale’s Wes Burford by a 14-5 majority decision. Sandoval scored another majority decision in the finals with a 12-4 victory over Scott Beadles of Calaveras to take down the championship.

Sandoval is one of eight Bulldogs to qualify for the state meet, which will begin Thursday in Bakersfield. The others are sophomore Elijah Almarinez (106), freshman Wyatt Sandoval (113), sophomore Landen Borchers (120), senior Casey Roberts (126), junior Qusai Marini (138), junior Arjun Nagra (152) and senior Caleb Borchers (170).

This is Sandoval’s second trip to Bakersfield. He qualified in 2020 by finishing third at 170 at the Masters meet and then placed fourth at the state tournament. He was one of Vacaville’s four state medalists last year. Medals are awarded to the top eight finishers in each weight class. The other Bulldogs to earn medals were Isaiah Kainoa Medina (sixth at 106), Tyler Riley (eighth at 113) and Eric Almarinez (sixth at 138).

The Bulldogs will practice Wednesday morning and then depart for Bakersfield. They will have a workout in the evening at Mechanics Bank Arena. Sandoval’s bid for a second state medal begins Thursday against Noel Cellabos of Monache High (Porterville). Sandoval is the No. 3 seed, one spot higher than his state ranking by CalGrappler.com.

Tye Monteiro of Bakersfield High is seeded and ranked No. 1. Fountain Valley’s T.J. McDonnell is seeded second and ranked third. Sonny Kling of Canyon Springs is No. 2 in the rankings but fourth in the seedings. If the top four seeds hold true through the quarterfinals Friday, Sandoval will face McDonnell is the semifinals on Saturday.

Monteiro and McDonnell finished second and third, respectively, at the 2022 state tournament.

Remarkable season for Rams

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Shawna and Brad Humphries waited with open arms Feb. 25 for their daughter Brianna to emerge from the locker room at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento. Brianna had just led Dixon High School’s girls basketball team to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV championship. Her proud parents were eager to embrace the 6-foot-1 senior for a once-in-a-lifetime celebration.

Brianna blew right past her parents, however, just as she did with any Calaveras player who dared to get in her way during the Rams’ 48-42 victory. Her first celebratory hug other than with a teammate or coach was reserved for her biggest fan and tiniest relative. Brianna hoisted her 6-year-old cousin, Sebastian Fernandez, into her arms in much the same manner she had lifted her teammates with 27 points and 16 rebounds.

According to Brianna, her bond with Sebastian stems from each being the only child in their respective families. It also might be because their birthdays are one day apart and make for a perfect time to have a family get-together. And when Sebastian began to play baseball, Brianna shared the fundamentals she learned in softball.

**Brianna Humphries (from left) hugs her cousin, Sebastian Fernandez, after propelling Dixon High to the Sac-Joaquin Section Division IV championship.**

“I don’t have many cousins living near me,” Brianna said. “(Sebastian) has always been there for me. It’s always been me and him. We’re two peas in a pod.”

Sebastian is just old enough to remember when Brianna was down and out in her junior year after tearing the meniscus in her right knee. She sustained the injury with her AAU team, which kept her active when the 2020-21 high school basketball season was postponed to late April and then shortened to just 10 Golden Empire League games.

Such a setback was nothing new for Brianna even though she said the pain was far worse than when she tore two ligaments and the meniscus in the same knee as a freshman. The brace she now wears on her right knee suggests she is not 100 percent, but anyone fortunate enough to have watched Brianna during the section playoffs will say that nothing appears to be wrong with her.

Her reconstructed knee is why Brianna has decided to play softball in college at San Diego Christian instead of opting for basketball or water polo. She received three scholarship offers for softball, but two came from small colleges in the Midwest and she would rather stay closer to home. UC Davis offered her a scholarship for water polo, but Brianna ranks water polo as her No. 3 sport even though she was the starting goalie for the Rams last November when Dixon won the section Division III championship.

Brianna is not breaking up with basketball because no college showed enough interest in her to offer a scholarship. The words of the surgeon who repaired her knee are still ringing in her ears. He told her matter of factly that her knee would not withstand four years of college basketball. She also remembers the toll of playing as many as five AAU games in a weekend took on her knee last year and likely led to her meniscus tearing for a second time.

Her left knee was an issue in the section championship game. Brianna fell in the third quarter and scraped her knee on the hardwood. Not only did she have to leave the game so her knee could be bandaged, but she also made mistake of touching the scrap and then wiping her hand on her shorts. It took some time for those in charge at Golden 1 Center to find a person with enough medical merit to patch her knee and clean the stain on her shorts.

“They were taking like forever. It was a whole fiasco,” said Brianna, who sprinted to the scorers table once her knee was bandaged and returned to the court at the next break in the action. There was just one slight problem, however. Brianna was in such a hurry to re-enter the game that she did not think of checking with head coach Mike Gilliard as she sprinted by him to find out which teammate she would be replacing.

There are plenty of folks in Dixon who will say Brianna is irreplaceable, but she does not act as if she is. She does not clamor for attention even though she was the center of it after Dixon defeated Calaveras. As her teammates made their way to the press conference room, Brianna was stopped on the court by the Sac-Hi Sports camera crew for an interview. Once she rejoined the team, reporters wasted no time in asking her about everything from her upbringing and parents (Brad played football at Vacaville High and Shawna was a swimmer at Dixon) to her knee injuries and college aspirations. She did not expect or want to be thrust into the spotlight.

“I didn’t want it to be all about me. It was a team effort,” Brianna said. “We knew from the beginning (of the season) that we were aiming for something much higher than league. We were shooting for state. That was our whole goal. We all know we can do it.”

It was not meant to be for the Rams, however. Dixon defeated Chico in the first round of the Northern California Division III playoffs for its 19th consecutive victory, but the Rams were no match against Oakland Tech in a 78-38 rout. At least Humphries and her teammates can say they lost to the best Division III girls team in the state after Oakland Tech claimed the championship with a 39-33 victory over La Salle.