League play begins tonight - Vacaville Reporter
League play begins in earnest for local high school football teams tonight, and nowhere is that more evident than at Vacaville.
Red-hot Will C. Wood makes its Monticello Empire League debut at Tom Zunino Stadium against Fairfield. And the Bulldogs hit the road ... again ... to battle powerhouse Napa in a game that has decided the MEL title for the last decade.
Sure, it's still just the opener. But consider this:
* Napa will open the new Memorial Stadium tonight, just in time for the showdown.
* The Indians will hold a Hall of Fame induction, providing even more fan fervor.
* Napa, which played a "zero week" game on Aug. 28, scheduled its bye last week and has had two weeks to get ready for the Bulldogs.
"We appreciate the importance of the game, and I think they do, too," Vacaville head coach Mike Papadopoulos said with a laugh. "There are a lot of interesting factors at play here."
Vacaville at Napa
The Bulldogs are 4-1 overall, the Indians 5-0. Napa beat Antioch two weeks ago, and has outscored its last three opponents by a combined total of 135-21.
The Indians also will have a considerable home-field advantage, even though Bulldog fans travel better than almost any fans in the Sac-Joaquin Section.
Papadopoulos doesn't seem to mind. The Bulldogs downed Deer Valley of Antioch 47-26 last week on the Wolverines' homecoming night.
"In our opener at Rodriguez, a lot of our fans couldn't event get in the gate for the first 45 minutes," Papadopoulos said. "Week Two was our opener, so it was packed. The next week we were at Granite Bay and it was packed, and then our homecoming was the week after that.
"On certain levels it's just as we hoped. We're proud of our schedule, and we feel it's prepared us for going to Napa."