LAKE COUNTY — Week four might be called a foundation week for Lake County”s high school football teams and coaches, most of whom will know exactly where they stand after games tonight and Saturday.
With the start of league play just a couple of weeks off, it”s time to start answering the questions that presented themselves before week one. Is your offense good enough? Is your defense good enough? Do you measure up favorably with the teams you”ll need to beat in league?
Teams that are still asking those questions after this weekend may be in for a bumpy ride ahead. Others will have a slew of results to compare from interlock play between the schools of the North Central League I North and South. While a win tonight or Saturday isn”t an ironclad guarantee of success down the road, the winners will certainly be in a better position as the autumn days grow shorter and the nights longer.
Two of the weekend matchups are all-county affairs as Middletown (2-1) hosts Clear Lake (2-0-1) tonight and Upper Lake (2-1) entertains Kelseyville (1-1-1) on Saturday. Also tonight, the Lower Lake Trojans (0-3) travel to Cloverdale (2-1).
Clear Lake at Middletown
Clear Lake coach Milo Meyer has never had a great deal of success against coach Bill Foltmer”s Mustangs, but the Cardinals did snap a seven-game losing streak to Middletown a year ago with a 26-7 win at Lakeport, part of the Cardinals” undefeated regular-season ride in 2007.
One year later the two teams have nearly traded places as far as their rosters go. Last season it was a junior-dominated Middletown team taking on a senior-dominated Clear Lake club, but now it”s the other way around as the veteran Mustangs take on the mostly-junior Clear Lake offensive and defensive units.
“I never really thought about that last year and I”m not really thinking about it this season,” Foltmer said. “We prepare a certain way each week and the one thing I look at is where are we at as a team?”
Both teams are coming off solid victories in week three. Middletown pinned Cloverdale with its first loss of the season, 35-14 at Middletown, while Clear Lake smothered the Willits Wolverines 26-2 at Lakeport despite committing six turnovers.
“If we turn the ball over two times we”ll get beat,” said Meyer, who called tonight”s game a “measuring stick” for his squad.
“They are good,” Meyer said of the Mustangs. “The bottom line is the three teams we”ve played so far are a combined 1-8-1, and the three teams they”ve played are a combined 7-2, and that”s taking nothing away from Kelseyville. We”ll find out what kind of team we are this week, but we don”t have to win to find out we”re a good team. If we play them close, that will be a good sign.”
Middletown could easily find itself 3-0 instead of 2-1, the lone setback a 21-14 defeat to St. Vincent (3-0) two weeks ago in Petaluma.
“Defensively we”ve still got to do a little better,” Foltmer said. “We played a pretty good game (last week) and still had two turnovers. The new players we have (first-year junior starters on defense) are getting a little better each week and as they get better we”ll get better as a team.”
“Middletown is the best team we”ve seen so far,” Meyer said.
“I”m surely not going to take Clear Lake likely and I don”t think I ever had,” Foltmer said.
Lower Lake at Cloverdale
At Cloverdale, the Lower Lake Trojans couldn”t win in three straight home games to open the 2008 season, so they”ll try their luck on the road tonight against the Eagles, who were grounded last weekend by Middletown.
Compounding matters for the Trojans will be the loss of a half-dozen starters, all unavailable this week for a variety reasons.
“A couple it”s for discipline, a couple others injuries,” Lower Lake coach Stan Weiper said. “You name it.”
Lower Lake is coming off a disheartening 28-14 loss to the Upper Lake Cougars, who scored the game”s final 20 points to wipe out a 14-8 Lower Lake lead late in the first half.
“We”ll play solid for a long period of time and then bango! We”ve been giving up the long home run,” Weiper said of his defense.
Hurt by the big pass play all year, the Trojans will certainly need to get that part of their game in order against the Eagles, who run a pretty balanced offense and certainly will attempt to exploit any weakness they sense in Lower Lake”s young and inexperienced secondary.
That”s especially true this week with reserves moving in to replace starters.
“Unfortunately the people we have moving in have even less experience,” Weiper said.
One bright spot for Lower Lake so far in 2008 has been the play of junior quarterback Stephen Whitcomb, who is on a pace to break the school”s single-season passing yardage record of 1,614 yards (set in 1991 by Jim Lujan). Because they”re playing from behind in their games, the Trojans haven”t been shy about putting the ball in the air and Whitcomb has responded by completing 22 of 52 passes for 532 yards, six touchdowns and six interceptions. He leads the county in all of those categories.
And junior fullback Chris Perry (49 carries for 241 yards) has topped the 100-yard mark in two of the Trojans” three games.
Lower Lake will once again be without speedy running back Michael Bell (knee injury).
Kelseyville at Upper Lake
For the first time in years, both teams are actually looking forward to this meeting. Why? Whoever wins will be on a two-game winning streak and have a winning record.
Kelseyville”s dominance of Upper Lake in recent season is well documented. Upper Lake hasn”t won in this series since 1993. In fact, the Knights” only win last season came at the Cougars” expense.
The Knights have shown big improvement in each game since losing to Berean Christian 43-7 last month in their opener. Kelseyville came back the following week to tie Clear Lake 7-7, and the Knights busted out a week ago with a 37-21 victory over previously undefeated St. Helena (2-1).
If Kelseyville second-year coach Thad Owens is looking to build momentum as the Knights prepare for their North opener two weeks down the road against Willits, beating the Cougars would be just the ticket.
That doesn”t mean a win over Upper Lake is automatic, according to Owens.
“I was not happy with the way we practiced on Monday and Tuesday,” Owens said. “I wanted the kids to enjoy the win (over St. Helena), but you also have to stay focused about the game coming up. Practice was much better Wednesday and today (Thursday).”
You can count on Upper Lake doing everything in its power to end what is now the longest active losing streak in a head-to-head series between two Lake County football teams. That might mean feeding the ball to running back Joe Barnes another 32 times, which is what coach Airic Guerrero did last week against Lower Lake. Barnes rushed for 211 yards and the Upper Lake passing game also got in its licks as quarterback Brandon Mendoza passed for 127 yards and a TD.
“Last week was a big win for Upper Lake and this week is their homecoming, so they”ll be all keyed up,” Owens said. “We”ve got our hands full with them.”
While Barnes is coming off a great game for the Cougars, no one had a better week three than did Kelseyville junior running back Steven Grossner. He rushed for 142 yards and a touchdown, caught four passes for 51 yards, including TD grabs of 15, 13 and 11 yards, recovered two fumbles and was in on 13 tackles.
“We”re going to have to dominate the line of scrimmage and be physical with them if we want to win,” Owens said.
Apart from the physical part of the game, there”s also the mental aspect, according to Owens, as in which team will better handle the success from the previous week and not let it go to their heads?
“They”re hungry and they”re ready to go on a run here,” Owens said of his players.
No matter how it goes, one of these two teams is going to be feeling great late Saturday afternoon.
