Stanislaus District’s Got Talent: Third win proved Central Catholic was hungry

Featured Player: Justin Rice

Justin Rice will be featured throughout the series. He was the 2014 and 2015 Stanislaus District Player of the Year, held Central Catholic rushing records and played both offense and defense on state championship teams. After a decorated high school career, Rice played Division I football at Fresno State, Arkansas State and Utah State, starting at running back then switching to linebacker. After college, he played in the Canadian Football League in 2022 before a meniscus injury three games into the year ended his season. Rice returned to the States and is now a pilot.

Watching from the side

It was the worst ankle sprain he’s had in his life. Justin Rice knew it right away.

In the Holy Bowl, Central Catholic’s star senior two-way running back and linebacker re-aggravated an ankle injury he originally suffered in the Raiders’ season opener against Atwater. He says it popped and “did not feel good.”

That would explain why the soon-to-be two-time Bee Player of the Year and more than 2,600-yard rusher had just 163 rushing yards and 1 touchdown through two games.

“I was pushing to come back for St. Mary’s,” he recalled. “Then when I re-rolled it at St. Mary’s. I was like I’m not playing against Beyer.”

It wasn’t your average high ankle sprain. It was swollen, black and blue. The works. Normally, those things get better with time, for Rice as the next week went on, his fate became more obvious.

“And then as the week went on, it was like nope, not playing, nope, not playing. It wasn’t a game-time decision,” he said. “It was a pretty obvious I’m not playing that week because it was not feeling or looking very good.”

The game he had to miss was against Beyer. A school the Raiders beat 41-13 the year before. While this was the perfect week to rest up, Rice didn’t want to sit out. He wanted to play as many games as he could.

The coaches at Fresno State agreed. As a three-star recruit, he committed to Fresno State on Aug. 22. When coaches called to check up on him, he assured them that it was just an ankle sprain and he would not miss extended time.

“All they had heard was that I wasn’t playing,” he said. “I just let them know it’s just an ankle and they said OK, we wanna come down and see how you look and I told them to come down in like two to three weeks.”

But instead of adjusting which hole in the line he would attack on offense or learning new ways to combat the Patriots’ offense with defensive assignments, he was attacking rehab. All week.

He spent one to two hours every day working to get back as soon as possible. He compressed and iced his ankle, minimizing the swelling, and did a combination of single-leg stability, resistance band and flexibility exercises to maintain balance and leg strength and re-gain range of motion as fast as possible.

Pulling motivation from anywhere

While Rice was rehabbing, the Raiders were drawing motivation from surrounding storylines.

Sure, they were the three-time defending state champions, but each week they fed off something different.

Week 4 presented a new challenge: their one and only date with a school from the Modesto Metro Conference.

The nationwide private-public school rivalry dates back to essentially the origins of high school football itself.

Publics feel like privates take their players and private schools argue back that they don’t go out and take kids. The private school populations are just a fraction of their public counterparts. Locally, the MMC was made of all Modesto City Schools and Central Catholic was chasing its fourth straight win over a team from the league. Many were pulling for the next MMC school the Raiders played, hoping they would be the first team since Downey in 2012 to pull off the massive upset.

Central Catholic knew it would have to stop Jay Green, Beyer’s all-time leading rusher at the time. Green entered the matchup with 500 rush yards, first in the Stanislaus District.

The Raiders fed off that. Hungry to extend their streak, keep their perfect season intact.

The Raiders were the No. 1 large school in The Bee’s rankings at the time but they still felt disrespected. They were voted to finish third in the Valley Oak League and everyone kept bringing up that they lost to Sierra and Oakdale the year before. Was the underdog narrative self-facilitated? Hardly. They heard the noise and wanted to respond.

“It just felt like we had a chip on our shoulder every single game we went into,” Rice said. “Our group was so determined to win that we just found something to get us going.

“It was like every game we had something that ticked us off and we were like, ‘We’re gonna show everyone we’re the real deal and we’re a great team.’”

The Patriots were hungry to get back on track. They lost two of their first three contests entering the matchup.

This was the Raiders’ only time to prove that they were the best team in the city. Friday, Sept. 18, 2015 was the only game that year Central Catholic had against a school in Modesto.

Others stepped up

Without their top rusher, others stepped up.

In the St. Mary’s game, Montell Bland got a shot to carry the load and against Beyer, he had a career game. He rushed for a season high 96 yards and had a single-game career high three touchdowns on a season-high 10 carries.

“It was tough but honestly it was a lot of fun to see guys who normally didn’t get a lot of carries tear it up and shine as well,” Rice said. “As tough as it was sitting out and watching, it was fun to be there and watch other guys ball out and have a lot of fun.”

The Patriots did lead in the game, however.

They scored the game’s first touchdown and took a 6-0 lead before Central Catholic rattled off 52 straight points. Hunter Petlansky threw a touchdown to Jacob Days and Ryan Vierra, Jared Rice (no relation to Justin) had 115 rushing yards and a touchdown and Noah Jones-Porter scored once on the ground.

The Raiders were now 3-0 after the first four weeks of non-league play. Already better than each of their three prior state championship seasons.

But coming up was the real challenge: The hunt for their first Valley Oak League title began the next week against Weston Ranch.

This story was originally published September 17, 2025 at 7:00 AM.

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.