LAKEPORT — There were no clear-cut game breakers on Friday night at Don Owens Stadium. Indicative of what kind of game it was, two different quarterbacks led Clear Lake”s Cardinals on sustained offensive drives the first time they put the ball in play in each half of their 13-8 victory over Kelseyville.
So maybe the Cardinals should award the game ball to the “snake,” because Kelseyville continued to be snake-bitten against archrival Clear Lake, which has not lost to the Knights (formerly the Indians) in their last seven meetings.
The count reached 6-0-1 against Kelseyville in the most recent confrontation via a nine-play, 80-yard drive in the first quarter engineered by junior quarterback Jameson Holder, and an eight-play, 65-yard drive in the third quarter led by senior QB Nathan Velez. Holder capped the first drive, which was accomplished on the ground in its entirety, on a 2-yard keeper with 4:25 left in the first period. A 36-yard Velez-to Rick Menesini pass accounted for the second TD less than four minutes into the second half.
“Holder gave us some good offense in the first half and then Velez gave us a little different type of activity as a running quarterback,” Clear Lake coach Glenn “Milo” Meyer explained.
The two touchdowns sandwiched Kelseyville”s lone touchdown in the final seconds of the first half. It was the result of a determined drive that began from the Knights” 35-yard line with only 74 seconds left in the half.
The K”ville touchdown was a 19-yard pass from quarterback Tony Sekona to tight end Jared Templeton and the Knights went up 8-7 when Tanner Olsen scored a two-point conversion. More than that, it looked like the Knights had found something to hang their hats on — as well as hopes — the Sekona-Templeton combination, which accounted for three completions worth 89 yards in the last three minutes of the first half.
But it didn”t happen.
A third-quarter drive after an interception by the Knights” Bryan Chang at the Cardinal 40 also failed to materialize into anything more than a feint at the Clear Lake goal. And after the Knights moved to a first down on the Cards” 12-yard-line, there was a great deal of self-denunciation by head coach Stan Weiper.
“I gave the game away,” he lamented. “It was horrible play-calling on my part. Inside the 10 (yard line), I took our drive away.”
The drive ended in an interception by Holder of a second-and-seven pass from the Clear Lake 9-yard-line.
Sekona, however, absolved his coach.
“I shouldn”t have tried to force the pass,” he said.
The game was largely an exercise in missed opportunities. The Cards had one themselves when they drove the ball for nearly eight minutes in the second quarter, running 15 plays only to fumble the ball at the Kelseyville 24.
It was a welcome win for Meyer, whose Cardinals were shut out in consecutive games and then victimized in a heartbreaker against Fort Bragg after leading 14-0.
“We needed this win a lot,” Meyer agreed.
Meyer said he wouldn”t go so far as to say the Cards have a hex on Kelseyville.
“But Middletown always beats us and we beat Kelseyville.
“We find ways to lose, but tonight we found a way to win,” he added.
Next time Weiper should bring some snake poison.
