Central Catholic cruises past Christian Brothers, runs record to 12-0
Thanksgiving this year figures to be a lot better for Central Catholic football coach Roger Canepa.
Last season, Canepa guided his Raiders to the Sac-Joaquin Section championship game against Sonora, his alma mater and the team he coached in the 1990s. In addition, Canepa had numerous family members playing and coaching for the Wildcats.
“I got the smallest piece of turkey ever,” said Canepa, who was outnumbered during the holiday celebration. “My mom wouldn’t even talk to me last year.”
While Canepa’s kin will be happy that Sonora is back in the Division IV title game, they can also get behind Central Catholic because it’s facing an opponent other than the Wildcats.
After a convincing 63-0 win over Christian Brothers of Sacramento on Friday night at David Patton Memorial Field, the undefeated Raiders (12-0) will host unbeaten Placer in the Division III semifinals, next week’s only matchup of teams with perfect records.
“It should be a great game,” said Canepa, who defeated Placer 49-13 in Auburn to open the 2013 season after losing 48-30 in Modesto a year earlier. “It should help that we saw the Wing-T a couple of weeks ago.”
The Raiders got a heavy dose of Wing-T offense on Nov. 6, when it held on for a 42-37 victory over Oakdale in their first battle of unbeatens this season. Central Catholic and Oakdale entered that game with 9-0 records.
Against the Falcons, the Raiders got two Justin Rice touchdown runs – seven and 26 yards – en route to a 14-0 first-quarter lead.
In the second quarter, Central Catholic got TD runs from quarterback Hunter Petlansky, Jared Rice, another from Justin Rice and Montell Bland as it built a commanding 42-0 halftime advantage.
Justin Rice, The Bee’s Player of the Year in 2014, carried the ball 11 times for 115 yards, pushing his season total 1,685 yards. Jared Rice rushed for 107 yards on seven attempts and now is 102 yards short of a 1,000-yard season. Petlansky was an efficient 8 of 12 passing for 148 yards.
Defensively, the Raiders held Christian Brothers (9-3) to fewer than 100 total yards. Falcons senior quarterback Braeden Bourke, who entered averaging 238 passing yards per game with 27 touchdowns and just nine interceptions, was held to 90 passing yards and was picked off twice.
“We’ve played pretty good defense all year,” said Canepa, who was not pleased with his team’s lackluster performance in a 42-0 win over El Camino of Sacramento in a D-III opener. “We’re healthy right now, and we got our mojo back after last week.”
This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 5:26 AM with the headline "Central Catholic cruises past Christian Brothers, runs record to 12-0."