‘Anybody, anywhere, anytime’: Central Catholic football to take on national power
Central Catholic High School already had a tough football schedule slated for the 2022 season but when one school dropped out, they had to go looking for another game.
Raiders head coach Roger Canepa said within minutes of notifying teams of the vacancy, one school came calling: California and national powerhouse St. John Bosco.
The Raiders will travel to Bellflower, Calif. Sept. 23 to take on the Braves, led by coach Jason Negro, who finished the 2021 season ranked as California’s fourth-best team and the No. 6 team in the final MaxPreps National rankings of 2021. They finished last season 10-2 overall and 4-1 in the Trinity League; they have been named national champions twice and state champions three times.
The addition comes not long after the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section selected the Raiders, who ended the season as the No. 34 team in the state, as one of the few teams to move up a division for the playoffs starting next year.
Central Catholic’s original opponent, Windsor, canceled this year’s game after a coaching change. Some teams sign contracts when scheduling preseason games, but Canepa had a good relationship with former head coach Paul Cronin, and the two sides had what Canepa called a “verbal contract”, making it easy for the Jaguars to back out of the game.
“They didn’t want to play us,” Canepa said. “They called and said, ‘You guys are too good, we don’t want to play you’ and just dropped us.”
The Division 2-AA CIF Northern California Champions will end their preseason traveling to 2021 Open Division runner-up Serra on Sept. 10, a bye the week of Sept. 16 then the trip to Southern California to play St. John Bosco the following week.
“When you take a look at the program that he has built, they’re on the smaller side in terms of enrollment but have that we’ll play anybody, anywhere, anytime mindset,” Negro said over the weekend. “It’s just a welcoming opportunity for us to reach out, and we know they’re definitely not afraid of anybody. They’re a really hard-nosed, well-coached football team. So this is going to be great competition for our program.”
Canepa and Negro have history. The two first met when they were coaching the 2015 Under Armour All-America Game in Florida. The two connected through their Central Valley ties: Negro has family members that live in Sonora and a cousin in Modesto. The Raiders also used St. John Bosco’s facility for practice before playing in the 2-AA CIF State Championship.
“When they used our stadium for practice, I got an opportunity to sit and talk with his staff and some of his coaches and we just talked and said, ‘Hey, if we ever had an opportunity to potentially play a game, maybe we can get together and pull it off,’” Negro said. “When I saw that posting, I was like, ‘Man, I’m going to take a shot at this’ and lo and behold, it all worked out.”
Both programs have had a steady climb in success and popularity in the past decade, which makes it tough to schedule non-league games. Most teams just don’t want to face a powerhouse in the preseason. But Bosco and Central Catholic have both been on record multiple times saying they’ll play anyone anywhere.
The Raiders considered playing schools in Oregon, Arizona and Nevada to fill the hole but Canepa said the schools they tried wouldn’t agree to a game. Negro says the Braves have traveled to play games in 10 states in the past 12 years because local schools won’t play them.
“It’s an honor that people like that are calling you for games,” Canepa said. “Now, it’s gonna be a tough game, but like every game we go to play to win.”
Central Catholic 2022 Preseason Schedule
| Date | Opponent | Location | 2021 Record |
| 8/19 | Merced | at Merced | 9-4 |
| 8/26 | Saint Francis (Mountain View) | at Saint Francis | 11-1 |
| 9/2 | St. Mary’s (Holy Bowl) | Home | 10-3 |
| 9/10 | Serra | at Serra | 11-2 |
| 9/16 | Bye | Bye | Bye |
| 9/23 | St. John Bosco | at St. John Bosco | 10-2 |
