T.J. Ewing is a bear of a man, towering over a good many of the football players he coaches like a boss and cares for like a father. The stout 6-foot-3 Monterey Trail High School football coach can still hold his own in the weight room, and blocking sleds may wince when he approaches, but he doesn’t have speed or burst – never has – like the bevy of backs he has unleashed this season.
Ewing beamed as he took a peek Friday night at Caleb Ramseur, all of 5-foot-9 and 165 pounds of grit and skill. And endurance.
Ramseur carried the ball 38 times for 132 yards and three short touchdowns, the No. 5-seeded Mustangs expertly controlled the clock and they registered a knockout blow of the region’s preeminent powerhouse, registering a 35-23 victory at top-seeded Folsom in a section Division I semifinal.
“Oh, Caleb’s a Monterey Trail lifer, like his family, royalty to this program,” Ewing said. “We needed him tonight, all of them. Every night. We fight. We compete. You have to bring in haymakers against a team as great as Folsom.”
Monterey Trail’s haymakers were subtle but effective. The Mustangs (12-1) owned the time of possession – 40 minutes to 8 – and the game. Ramseur capped 14- and 15-play drives with scoring runs of 1 and 2 yards. His third score, a 2-yard plunge, pushed the Mustangs ahead 28-17 to open the fourth quarter after his club ran off the final 10:19 of the third.
Monterey Trail then sealed one of the Sac-Joaquin Section’s signature upsets with a 16-play drive, capped by Viktor Timonin’s 15-yard scoring strike to Antonio Williams with 2:14 to go. Who does that to Folsom? The Mustangs do and did, and now they gallop into next Saturday night’s D-I final at Hughes Stadium against second-seeded Oak Ridge, which beat Inderkum 56-21 in the other semifinal.
Monterey Trail is in its fourth D-I final since 2008 and it used last season’s crushing finals lost to Folsom as fuel, none more than the offensive line of Lathun Snipes, Mario Keanon, Daniel Ramirez, Andreas Argumedo, Kelepi Talakai, Jasdev Banwait and Reggie Parke.
“Our guys took it on the chin last year to Folsom and they owned it and wanted to get better, and they would not be denied,” Ewing said.
Monterey Trail’s defense, headed by linebacker Marcus Jones, allowed Folsom no momentum. Folsom has devoured a lot of teams with an avalanche of momentum this decade. But the Bulldogs (10-2) ran just 10 plays in the second half, and the program’s quest to reach a section final for the 10th consecutive season ended in a haze and pileup of Mustangs green.
Folsom had gone 35-2 in section playoff action coming into Friday, and it had won a remarkable 96 of its previous 98 against section teams overall since 2016. Friday was Folsom’s first playoff loss of any sort since falling to St. Mary’s of Stockton in the 2016 D-I section finals. The Bulldogs peeled off seasons of 16-0, 14-1 and 10-2 since then and it closed out the decade with 137-12 record to go with four CIF State titles, including the previous two in Division I-AA.
Monterey Trail players admired all of that pedigree but the Mustangs were not awed or intimidated. Their coach wouldn’t allow it.
Prophet Brown rushed for 90 yards for Monterey Trail, including a 40-yard scoring sprint for a 14-0 lead after the first quarter. The unsung guy in the mix is Timonin, the steady quarterback. He rushed for key first downs to help drain the clock, hit backs for screen plays and then dropped in a perfect pass to Williams in the end zone for the final score, and then Brown really sealed it with an interception in the end zone.
“Vicktor, he’s a great leader for us,” Ewing said. “We have a lot of leaders, all the seniors.”
Folsom coach Paul Doherty had not met Ewing before Friday, but he has long admired him and his team.
“Hat’s off to those guys, great game, and hat’s off to our guys, who played hard,” Doherty said. “I was there at Sac State in 2009, in the rain, and watched Pleasant Grove and Monterey Trail play for the championship. I’m so impressed with what T.J. has done and how they do it with humility.”
Monterey Trail players were ecstatic for their coach, the only head coach for the varsity program since the school opened in the Elk Grove Unified School District in 2004. But the early years were brutal for Ewing. The Mustangs started 1-19, found themselves and got rolling. And on it goes.
“We love coach Ewing,” Brown said with Williams and Ramseur agreeing with big grins. “He’s everything to us.”
Folsom’s Jake Reithmeier hit Elijhah Badger for touchdown passes of 26 and 25 yards and he scored on a 51-yard run. He ran for 94 yards and passed for 195, but mostly, the stellar senior quarterback watched anxiously as Monterey Trail owned the clock, and then the game.
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