Stanislaus District’s Got Talent: Holy Bowl showed 2015 Raiders what they could be

Featured player: Liam Pecchenino

Pecchenino will be one of the recurring players featured in this seasonlong series. Before he was a track and field athlete at Fresno State, he was a two-year varsity player at safety, tight end and linebacker. He contributed on special teams and on defense, tallying 16 tackles and one sack his senior season. He now teaches government and economics and coaches Central Catholic’s freshman team.

Knowing the significance

To understand the importance of the 2015 Holy Bowl, we have to dissect what happened in 2014.

Pecchenino and a lot of the football players in his class lost just three games in their high school careers. The first was the 2014 Holy Bowl.

They went 7-0 on the freshman team, and as sophomores on junior varsity, they went 10-0. With the 62-13 blowout of Atwater a week earlier, Pecchenino was 18-0 as a high schooler.

The day of his first loss, Sept. 12, 2014, was a dogfight, like any other Holy Bowl in those years was. Both sides traded offensive blows and defensive stops, but it looked like the Raiders would get the last laugh. With 7 minutes, 11 seconds left, quarterback Hunter Petlansky put the Raiders up 13-12 and looked to ice the game with the final possession minutes later. A late fumble, however, gave St. Mary’s the final possession, which was capped by a run from quarterback Noah Righetti with just 29 ticks left. The Rams won 18-13.

“Oh, I’ll never forget that football game as long as I live,” Pecchenino said.

St. Mary’s had at least 10 seniors give good production on both sides of the ball. Jared Rice was a senior but the Raiders got most of their production from a junior quarterback in Petlansky, sophomore Montell Bland and a host of other players who would be back the next year. That game drove them, Pecchenino said.

“St. Mary’s was loaded that year,” Pecchenino said about the 2014 team, “and we were young.”

“I remember waking up the next morning with a pit in my stomach. I hadn’t lost a game since I was a seventh-grader and some of my buddies, we hadn’t lost a game in high school. So, we were a little shell-shocked.”

Extra motivation

Going into the game in 2015, there was some extra motivation for both sides.

The two schools essentially swapped quarterbacks.

Central Catholic’s Hunter Petlansky attended the Stockton school his freshman year but transferred after just one year because the drive to Modesto was easier on his family.

And, boy, did he hear about it. Petlansky was heckled by the St. Mary’s fans on social media and from the stands and trash-talked by his former classmates on the field.

Tommy Alegre got the start for St. Mary’s in 2015, but three years prior, he was the signal caller for Central Catholic’s 7-0 freshman team.

“You know how teenage kids are. We’re talking back and forth, there’s some animosity from the year before,” Pecchenino said. “I know there were some comments made to Hunter. Some of the guys knew him so they went after him a little.”

To add fuel to the Raiders’ fire, Central Catholic was just 2-5 against the Rams in the Roger Canepa era.

“For the most part, I’m not the most liked person on that campus,” Petlansky told The Bee in 2015. “I’m excited to go back there and I hope it’s a great game. It should be. I’m just excited to play them again.”

The Raiders trailed 22-17 at halftime, but shut out the Rams after the intermission, claiming a 36-22 win. It was Central’s first Holy Bowl win since 2012, Pecchenino’s freshman year.

“I had been growing up going to Central games since I was born. My first Central game, I was like 3 months old and my parents brought me,” Pecchenino said. “I’ve always known what the Holy Bowl means.”

The ultimate benchmark

Throughout the history of their rivalry, for Central Catholic, beating St. Mary’s has always served as a good benchmark, Pecchenino recalls. Rams coach Tony Franks is a California coaching legend and always puts a good product on the field.

Petlansky knew it even in high school.

“I’ve had a few people ask how far do we think we’ll go this year. I say, ‘Ask me after the St. Mary’s game,’ “ Petlansky said in 2015. “Iron sharpens iron, and this is definitely a good game to see where we are. I’m excited to see where it goes.”

They showed up.

Justin Rice battled through an ankle injury but eventually had to be carried off the field. But the team rallied. Petlansky spearheaded a pair of fourth-quarter scoring drives then converted a fourth down from the Raiders’ 10 yard line. DaRon Bland returned a kickoff 95 yards for a first-quarter touchdown. Petlansky, Montell Bland and Rice each scored rushing touchdowns and the defense kept the Rams’ offense at bay, coming away with an interception and six sacks for 33 yards in a gutsy Holy Bowl victory.

A game for the ages that had its share of twists and surprises. But the best surprise happened postgame. Right after Canepa’s patented “How ‘bout them Raiders”.

“Rigth as he goes to hit it, me and Kekupa’a Freehauf come out of nowhere and throw a full purple Gatorade bath on him,” Pecchenino said. “I remember dunking Gatorade on the coach because you don’t get to do that a lot in high school.”

The first of many statements wins for the team that would put the Stanislaus District on the map.

This story was originally published September 12, 2025 at 1:57 PM.

Quinton Hamilton

The Modesto Bee

Quinton Hamilton covers high school sports for The Modesto Bee. He is a Southern California native and received his bachelor’s degree from Pacific Union College and a master’s in journalism from Quinnipiac University in Connecticut. Quinton has worked at the Record-Journal in Meriden and helped on projects at Hearst Connecticut.