The last time that the Truckee Wolverines lost a football game, George W. Bush was president.
Three years and 35 wins in a row later Truckee is on the verge of another state championship and is peeling off wins in a fashion that is bringing the powerhouse football program attention throughout the state.
Sacramento TV station KCRA’s website coronated Truckee’s high school football team as the ‘The Current King of California.’ And although ‘King of Nevada’ might be a more appropriate moniker (Truckee competes in the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association, almost exclusively against Nevada high schools), the reference to royalty is spot-on as Truckee continues piling up wins in every imaginable way — comebacks, beatdowns, and last-second heroics.
Saturday’s win over visiting Fallon, which earned Truckee another trip to the 3A state championship game this coming Saturday, Nov. 19 against Moapa Valley at Reno’s Damonte Ranch High School, was of the last-second-heroics variety.
Truckee, down by three in the waning minutes of the game, capped a game-winning drive with a touchdown pass from quarterback Partick Shaffer to Erik Holmer with eight seconds to go.
The touchdown put Truckee up 28-24, and the Wolverines escaped a last-ditch touchdown attempt by Fallon with no time left on the clock to cap its 35th straight win.
The win streak is currently the longest in California, and ranks eighth in the nation, according to high school football website Maxpreps.com. Of the seven teams with a longer win streak, Pahranagat Valley in central Nevada plays eight-player football, which results in a much different, and typically higher-scoring brand of football.
