LAKEPORT — For three quarters on Friday night, Clear Lake let St. Vincent hang close while it sought vainly to mount a scoring drive that would serve as a declarative statement.
Ultimately, the Cardinals did that with a 65-yard march powered on eight running plays by a trio of running backs. Fred Olloqui”s run from the 5-yard line followed by Mike Zimmerman”s extra-point kick with 8:34 remaining in the game put Clear Lake up 20-7 and pretty much wrote “finis” for the visiting Mustangs in a North Central League I South varsity football game in Lakeport.
But on the next series, which followed one of four Clear Lake interceptions, one guy — junior fullback Colin Coddington added the punctuation to the Cardinals” statement with a series of exclamation marks, as in Wow! Holy cow! Incredible! Amazing! Electrifying! And did you see that!
To score the second of his two TDs in the Cardinals” 26-7 victory, Coddington took a routine handoff from quarterback Nathan Velez at the St. Vincent 40, then ran straight up the middle of the field. More importantly, right up the middle of the Mustangs” defense, using sheer power and brute strength to break tackles and run over people. By the time he reached the end zone seemingly every player in the St. Vincent defense had a shot at him, but they looked like bowling pins. Two or three of them were still hanging on as he crossed the goal line.
“I was just thinking of running as hard as I could and how much I wanted to get to the end zone,” said Coddington, who staggered to the sidelines and was momentarily ill immediately after the run. He added that he was sick because of something he ate earlier.
Olloqui laughed.
“It was a good run,” he quipped, “but that”s what a running back is supposed to do.”
It was the only carry of the second half for Coddington and gave him 79 yards in 11 carries.
The game was not even as close as the score indicates. Clear Lake, winning its third straight after a 2-4 start, simply dared the Mustangs to try to run and concentrated strictly on demolishing St. Vincent”s passing game.
In its first visit to Clear Lake”s Don Owens Stadium since 1999, St. Vincent was brutalized. Three quarterbacks were sacked eight times in addition to the four interceptions. And the Mustang running game yielded a net minus-nine yards. St. Vincent”s longest run from scrimmage was for three yards.
“We knew that they couldn”t run much,” said Clear Lake coach Glenn “Milo” Meyer. “So, we concentrated on their passing. The game was a tribute to our defensive coach Steve Newnham who coached his last game in this stadium tonight because he is retiring.”
The Cardinals (2-1 South, 5-4 overall) were dominant from the start. They looked like they were running offensive scrimmages from the 25-yard line on their first three possessions of the game in the first quarter, all the result of St. Vincent turnovers, which numbered five in all. The Cards scored on two of the possessions on a 1-yard run by Coddington and a 4-yard run by Velez — his seventh touchdown in three games — to take a 13-0 lead out of the quarter.
St. Vincent (1-2, 2-7) closed to 13-7 with less than a minute elapsed in the second quarter on the strength of their heralded Rich Farinha-to-Jarred Pengel passing attack. Pengel, who has caught at least one pass in 15 straight games, caught his seventh scoring pass of the year – an 12-yarder on the ninth play of a 69-yard drive. Farinha and Pengel also teamed up to keep the drive alive with a 25-yard connection on a third down with 22 yards to go.
Surprisingly, that was the last hurrah for St. Vincent, last year”s champions of the NCL I South.
The 13-7 score held until the final quarter. But from the way Clear Lake was muffling the Mustangs” offense, it was clear that it was just a matter of time.
