Games to Watch: League play picks up in Week 6 with TVL, VOL rivalries
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Hilmar eyes 2-0 TVL start after 1,300+ rushing yards, led by strong O-line
- Central Catholic seeks redemption vs. 4-0 Manteca in pivotal VOL clash
- Hughson names freshman QB1 ahead of rivalry game with veteran Ripon Christian
Every Stanislaus District football league except the Central California Athletic League is in action this week. We’re in the thick of the season and these games are the ones that really matter.
Rivalries between some of the Sac-Joaquin Section’s most accomplished teams live on for another year in the Trans-Valley League and Valley Oak League this week. Hilmar and Escalon face off in the Vaca Bowl as the Yellowjackets look to improve to 2-0 in league play while Escalon looks for its first league win this season.
Central Catholic looks to get back on track against Manteca. After winning nine straight VOL matchups, the Raiders fell to the Buffaloes last season. Central Catholic enters Friday’s matchup with two straight wins, and Manteca has not lost a game this season at 4-0.
Fresh off a triple-overtime thriller, Davis takes on Lathrop and defending Western Athletic Conference MVP Pablo Pena. Patterson continues VOL play against undefeated East Union, and Hughson and Ripon Christian face off in TVL play.
Here is a preview with extra reporting on strategy, player availability and Hughson’s quarterback battle in this week’s Games to Watch.
No. 7 Hilmar (4-1, 1-0 TVL) at No. 8 Escalon (2-3, 0-1 TVL), 7 p.m.
The Yellowjackets are rolling, winning four of their first five games, including their TVL opener against Ripon Christian last week. Hilmar found a way to get ahead early in the game and maintained its lead against a Knights team that veteran coach Frank Marques said will surprise teams for the rest of this season.
Hilmar has benefited from staying mostly healthy. The run-heavy offensive attack is spearheaded by the guys up front, with one of the league’s top offensive lines that has paved the way for over 1,300 team rush yards and five different 100-plus yard rushers.
But Marques has preached to his players that there are no weeks off in the TVL and if they want to have success, they have to maintain their competitive edge while making smart plays and cutting down turnovers. Through their first five games, the Yellowjackets have thrown just one interception but have lost five fumbles. That’s a small number for a team with 222 total carries, but an ill-timed turnover could be the difference between a win and a loss in this league.
The Cougars had their opportunities in the first half against Sonora. They threw two red zone interceptions, one was a pick-six and fell behind 28-14 at halftime. The Wildcats scored early in the second half and took over the game from there.
An already hampered Escalon team may be fighting through more injuries this week as sophomores Dylan Ball and Carter Yates missed Monday’s practice with minor turf toe injuries. They are hoping to rejoin the team leading up to Friday with the hopes of being on the field Friday night.
Ball has been a threat for the Cougars all season, with a year of varsity experience under his belt. He is the team’s stats leader in receiving and rushing and plays defense as well.
Yates is also a two-way player who rarely leaves the field for the Cougars. He has made his mark mostly on the defensive end.
Though they are under .500, they have been in most of their games and have losses to teams with a combined 14-1 record, which gives them encouragement that this is not a lost season.
But head coach Andrew Beam knows Friday’s Vaca Bowl matchup will be just like the rest: a tough, gritty game between two teams that have tons of history playing against each other and playoff history.
East Union (5-0, 1-0 VOL) at No. 5 Patterson (1-4, 0-1 VOL), 7 p.m.
A shorthanded Patterson team hung with Central Catholic for a half last week, going into the intermission trailing 14-10, but ultimately ran out of gas, falling to 1-4 on the year.
The Tigers had to compete with the Stanislaus District’s top team without starting quarterback Jacob Pierce, who suffered a broken collarbone, and Royale Tago, who sprained his knee in the first half of their nonleague finale against Valley Christian.
Tago missed the Central Catholic game and Caden Lozano took over at quarterback. Lozano will be the Tigers’ quarterback for the foreseeable future, and though it is not his primary position, Patterson coach Rob Cozart said the coaching staff was encouraged with what it saw when Lozano played with minimal practice and is confident with what he brings moving forward.
Being 1-4 is tough for any team but the Patterson coaches are pouring encouragement into the players. They have a chance to pick up their second win this season in another playoff-like Valley Oak League environment against an explosive East Union team.
The Lancers are playing their best football in decades and are starting 5-0 for the first time since 1989. UC Davis commit Jackson Fay is one of California’s top receivers, boasting the state’s 19th-best receiving touchdowns mark and finishing in the top 20 in average punt return yards and total return yards.
Friday will be a reunion of sorts between Cozart and East Union assistant coach Teejay Gordon. When Gordon played quarterback at Modesto Junior College, Cozart coached the Pirates’ defense. He sees a lot of the same things in East Union’s offense as he saw in the MJC offense from 2011-2013. Gordon played collegiately, then played and coached professional football in Germany and is one of the many experienced coaches on the staff for first-year lead man Jason Stock.
No. 10 Ripon Christian (4-1, 0-1 TVL) at No. 6 Hughson (5-0, 1-0 TVL)
Hughson has found its quarterback, and he’ll be around for a while. Freshman Hudson Baldwin led a game-winning two-minute drive in a thrilling TVL opener against Ripon last week and does not get a break, taking on a near-perfect Ripon Christian team.
The Knights played Hilmar in their TVL opener last week and Yellowjackets head coach Frank Marques thinks Ripon Christian can surprise some people in its second season in the league.
The Knights started 4-0 thanks mostly to the play of its veterans. Quarterback Mason Tameling is a three-year starter who this season has seven passing touchdowns and just one interception. Amos Cady has been an electric playmaker as a receiver, rusher and kick returner, and Lushen Sanders has a team-high six rushing touchdowns. Defensively, Aaron Van Hofwegen leads the team with 55 tackles and six tackles for loss.
Though they fell in their league opener, the Knights already have wins over defending state champion Summerville and have scored over 35 points in each of their last three wins.
Hughson is off to its second straight 5-0 start, and after four weeks of a quarterback battle, the freshman stepped up last week and will be QB1 for the rest of the season.
Russell Spaulding, a senior, will have some packages as well, which will be good for mixing things up against different defenses.
Hughson has just one loss to Ripon Christian in their last six matchups, a 2009 league matchup. The last two matchups were one-score games, a 31-28 win in a 2022 high-stakes NorCal Bowl Game and last season’s 28-21 TVL win.
Valente Soria is continuing to play mostly defense while battling through injury, but Fresno State commit Bryce McDaniel, Eli Wilbanks, Lincoln Sousa and Lawson Aviles have held up a balanced offense that has produced 986 total rush yards and 11 touchdowns and 718 total pass yards and eight touchdowns.
Manteca (4-0, 0-0 VOL) at No. 1 Central Catholic (2-3, 1-0 VOL), 7 p.m.
Central Catholic head coach Roger Canepa feels his team is getting better at the right time. He said Sacramento State commit Carter Meeks, who was limited due to a hamstring injury, has seen his role increase as the season progressed. Last week in the Raiders’ first VOL win over Patterson, he recorded 10 or more carries and more than 60 rush yards for the second straight week and scored his first rushing and receiving touchdowns.
The Raiders are 2-3 despite playing a tough schedule and Canepa believes at times they played well, leading St. Mary’s and Central Catholic, a top-five school in Oregon, at halftime. In a sport where it feels like every possession matters, the Raiders are a few plays away from being 4-1.
They learned lessons through their first five games that will all be put to the test Friday against defending VOL champion Manteca. For the past few years, the Central Catholic-Manteca matchup played a hand in determining the league champion, and before last season’s 31-14 loss, the Raiders won nine straight over the Buffaloes.
There are playmakers all over the field, with Manteca’s Division I duo of junior running back Nikko Juarez and senior receiver Quinn Martinez and Central Catholic’s Fresno State commit Chase Perino and Meeks. They also have efficient, experienced quarterbacks in Owen Gully (Manteca) and Kayden McHenry (Central Catholic), a Sacramento State baseball commit.
This game for the Raiders comes down to if they can cut down on mistakes, minimize turnovers and keep Manteca’s playmakers contained.
Davis (2-2, 1-0 WAC) at Lathrop (3-1, 1-0 WAC), 7 p.m.
Davis and Central Valley can throw their names in the hat for game of the year after last week’s triple-overtime thriller in the Western Athletic Conference opener. The teams finished regulation tied 14-14 and traded missed field goals and defensive stops in the first two overtimes before Izmael Sanchez won the game on a running play in the third overtime.
Davis’ offense has to get going if it wants to win. The defense was the MVP of last week’s contest, coming up with a stop on the Hawks’ final play of regulation and back-to-back stops in double and triple overtime to set things up for Sanchez’s game-winning 10-yard run.
The Spartans’ highest-scoring game this season — a 34-point effort in a win over Orestimba — is just three points higher than Lathrop’s scoring average per game. Lathrop scored over 40 points in back-to-back games to start this season.
The Davis defense this week will have to try to stop the defending WAC MVP, Pablo Pena, and his rushing attack. He has already tallied 469 rush yards and nine touchdowns on 71 carries and has led Lathrop to a 3-1 record.
In the WAC opener, Pena carried the ball 25 times and had 125 rush yards with a pair of touchdowns. He is more than just an offensive force, his 50 tackles are 10th across the Sac-Joaquin Section through the first half of the season.
