Another year, another state trophy for the Grace Grizzlies

GRACE – The Grace football team added another state trophy to its collection this past season, making it three of the past four years the Grizzlies have brought home some hardware.

“I think we exceeded expectations,” coach Travis Draper said of the season, noting the exception was the 2A semifinal loss to buzzsaw Kendrick, which beat opponents by an average of nearly 67 points on the way to the state title.

That loss didn’t take away from a season in which the Grizzlies finish 9-2 and reached the playoffs for the sixth straight season, culminating in a third-place trophy.

“This was the best group of kids,” Draper said. “They worked hard in practice, they didn’t complain … They just tried to get better.”

The third-place trophy made it three trophies in four years for the Grace seniors.

Grace was among the top scoring teams in 2A (throwing out Kendrick’s 74 points per game) and beat conference foe Butte County 57-12 to clinch the conference title and playoff berth.

Gavin Draper was a second-team All-State selection at quarterback and defensive back, and kicker Bradley Schiele and linebacker Chase Smith were also named to the second-team.

Travis Draper said the senior class had played together for some time, and 12 players on this year’s 24-man roster were upperclassmen.

“The four juniors we had played quite a bit and we had a couple of sophomores that played,” Draper said while looking ahead to next season. “We had three or four freshmen that played a lot, so I think we have a solid group coming back. We have to replace some skill guys, but it will take some work over the summer to do that.”

As for this past season, Draper said it was another memorable playoff run.

“We had great senior leadership and great assistant coaches that helped out … I was so sad to see this season end,” he said.