Jacob Trach and Zach Larrier have seen one another on the football field for the past four seasons.
Soon, Trach, from Cosumnes Oaks and Larrier, who attends Monterey Trail, will play on the same team, as both signed football scholarships Feb. 6 to play for the Air Force Academy.
The pair were part of the group letter of intent signing ceremony at the Robert L. Trigg Education Center that saw 12 athletes sign their letters to play either soccer or football for D1 and D2 schools across the country on National Signing Day.
“Me and him have been competing against each other since we were freshmen so it’s great to see him go to the Air Force now. We can play with each other, not against each other,” Trach said after the National Signing Day ceremony.
Trach has been playing football for eight years, according to his estimate, and being offered a football scholarship was something he had envisioned for a while.
“Today was very exciting. It was just a moment I’ve been waiting for for a very long time,” Trach said.
In his senior year, he rushed for 1,211 yards and 14 touchdowns and had 19 receptions for 238 yards and two more touchdowns and helped the Wolfpack reach the first round of the Sac-Joaquin Section playoffs against Turlock.
Trach, Elijah King, Ally Lassetter and Meghan Vicek represented Cosumnes Oaks; King signed a football scholarship for Montana State University, Lassetter signed a soccer scholarship for San Francisco State University and Vicek signed a soccer scholarship for University of Illinois, Springfield.
Matt Horne (football) and Trevor Brown (soccer) represented Elk Grove High School, with Horne signing a scholarship for Northern Arizona University and Brown signing with California State University, East Bay.
Jehiel Budgett represented Monterey Trail along with Larrier in the Sac-Joaquin Section Championship game this past football season and signed a letter of intent to play for University of California, Davis.
Representing Pleasant Grove, Morgan Houston-Shepherd will play soccer for California State University, Long Beach. Sheldon’s Nicole Peoples will play soccer for Academy of the Arts at San Francisco.
Tyler Williams-Cescato and Roncelle Waffer, who both played football for Valley, will play football for University of Idaho and Western New Mexico University, respectively.
For Lassetter, who plans to study pre-kinesiology in hopes of becoming a physical therapist, the chance to sign a soccer scholarship was an affirmation of seven years of working toward reaching that step.
“I felt that all my hard work has paid off and I made it,” Lassetter said on her reaction upon receiving a scholarship.
Lassetter, who is a four-year member of Cosumnes Oaks’ varsity soccer team, completed her goal of playing in college after she said some told her they didn’t think it’d be possible.
“A lot of coaches told me that I was too short to play at the next level but I proved them wrong,” Lassetter said with a smile. “
Waffer, who rushed for 592 yards and four touchdowns and had 44 tackles as a senior for the Vikings, was offered his scholarship from Western New Mexico several weeks before he put pen to paper at the signing ceremony and said that the day signified 11 years of being on the field.
“If you work hard, you can get where you need to be,” Waffer said with his mother, Veronica Battle, standing nearby.
The day was a mixture of feelings for Waffer, who said that he plans to study law.
“I was nervous. I also felt good because it’s something that you’ve been working for all your life and that made me feel good,” said Waffer.
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