LOWER LAKE — After a comedy of errors that left nobody laughing in the first half by Lower Lake in its first postseason appearance in a dozen years, the Trojans got down to serious business in the second half against Terra Linda on Friday night.
But it was too little too late. And Terra Linda — the other Trojans on the field — made a 17-0 first-half lead stand up to oust Lower Lake in a first-round North Coast Section Class 2A playoff game, 17-6, at Gordon Sadler Field.
Lower Lake actually outscored Terra Linda in the second half, 6-0. But in the end, their four first-half turnovers — including three fumbles at strategic intervals — were simply too much for the Lower Lake Trojans to overcome.
Two of the three Lower Lake fumbles were followed by Terra Linda touchdowns, although the first was hardly a gimme as Terra Linda drove 70 yards in 10 plays after Jake Sanders, the pony back who was the Trojans” horse in the regular season, coughed up the ball on a play from Terra Linda”s 22 in the first quarter. A 24-yard pass from Terra Linda quarterback Chris Migdal to wideout Rick Hughes capped that drive.
The second fumble actually was the result of an onside kick after Terra Linda had taken a 10-0 lead on a 27-yard field goal by Sean Higgins. Mercifully, Terra Linda didn”t score after taking possession at the Lower Lake 41.
But the visiting Trojas scored on the next one, a bobbled fair catch of a punt that gave them a first down at the Lower Lake 10. Alex Blalock, Terra Linda”s workhorse running back, ran it in on the second play from there with 2:38 remaining in the half.
Largely because of Lower Lake”s first-half foibles, Terra Linda ran 35 plays to Lower Lake”s three in a stretch that began with 2:16 left in the first quarter and ended with 2:37 left in the half. Little wonder that Lower Lake had only 69 first-half yards.
“I don”t know if we could have won, but we certainly could have been more competitive,” Lower Lake Lake coach Stan Weiper surmised. “We can”t give up an onside kick. They practice it; we watched the film. Then the (fumbled) punt down inside the 10. Take those away I think we got a shot. We were just a little off our game.”
What Weiper didn”t say — and didn”t need to — was that the fourth-seeded Trojans from the Marin County Athletic were on theirs. Most especially Migdal, a gunner who outgunned fifth-seeded Lower Lake, completing his first seven passes.
Migdal, a junior, was deadly with his play action on-target passes to glue-fingered receivers, accounting for an eventual 12-for-15 for 109 first-half yards, including his scoring completion.
The writing was essentially on the wall in the early going when Terra Linda shackled Sanders. Even as Lower Lake drove the opening kickoff from its own 24 to the Terra Linda 22, Sanders was held to a negative four yards in six carries, culminating with his fumble.
“Our line played pretty good,” said Terra Linda coach Tim Bosque, who acknowledged the Trojans keyed on Sanders. “We told them to stay on him. We got the breaks and had to hang on in the end.”
Sanders fared better in the second half, gaining 70 yards in 10 carries, including 41 in five carries in Lower Lake”s 84-yard, 14-play drive for its only score. Sanders, running off tackle, provided the last eight yards needed to culminate that drive with 18 seconds left in the third quarter.
As the final seconds ticked away on a turnaround season for Lower Lake, Weiper”s countenance was hardly glum.
“I”m proud of the way we played this year,” he said. “We finished up real strong. It”s just been a wonderful year. When you go 10 years without a winning season, it should turn something around. It would have been nice to win this one, but to be honest Novato (whom Lower Lake would have played next) is way over our heads.
“This (playoff game) was a reward and I wanted the kids to play well, although we didn”t quite get there,” Weiper added.
What did he tell the Trojans at halftime when they were at a 17-0 deficit?
“I just told them they had achieved a lot of great things here for the community, the school, themselves. We wanted to go out strong and finish up a good year.”
Mission accomplished.
