MIDDLETOWN — The Clear Lake Cardinals get another shot at the Middletown Mustangs when the two teams square off Friday night in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division IV football playoffs at Middletown High School.
The only two Lake County schools in the eight-team Division IV field traveled all the way to Walnut Creek on Sunday for the at-large and seeding committee meeting only to find out what both head coaches suspected going in — that they wouldn”t need to borrow game films to scout their first-round opponent.
“It”s kind of funny,” Middletown coach Bill Foltmer said on Monday. “I guess the good news is we know them (Cardinals) pretty well. The bad news is they know us just as well. Oh well, what are you going to do?”
In a meeting that went pretty much by the numbers, according to Foltmer, Clear Lake was almost destined to play either Middletown or Ferndale in the opening round, something that coach Milo Meyer predicted last week before the Cardinals” 7-0 loss to St. Helena on Friday night in the regular-season finale. Even had the Cardinals won that game, they were unlikely to be seeded higher than seven based on how the seedings eventually played out ? Fort Bragg, a 28-6 winner over Clear Lake earlier this season, drew the No. 6 seed.
“I thought the committee did a good job of using the information the coaches provided them with, including ranking the teams 1-8,” Foltmer said.
In fact, committee members even questioned one coach about why he had ranked a particular team (Salesian) so low, according to Foltmer. The Chieftains, the Bay Football League champions, were ranked sixth by the coach in question even though a majority of the coaches present had Salesian at three, which is the seeding the Richmond team eventually drew.
“If they (committee members) did that more often, you probably wouldn”t see coaches doing that,” Foltmer said.
Ferndale (10-0), the undefeated Humboldt-Del Norte champion, was the unanimous choice for No. 1. Next came Middletown (9-1) at No. 2, Salesian (7-2) at No. 3, Justin-Siena (6-4) of the Marin County Athletic League at No. 4, St. Patrick/St. Vincent (7-3) of the Bay Shore Athletic League at No. 5, Fort Bragg (8-2) of the North Central League I North at No. 6, Clear Lake (6-3-1) of the NCL I South at No. 7, and Dougherty Valley (8-2) of the Diablo Foothill Athletic League at No. 8.
Unsuccessful in their bids to attain at-large berths were St. Helena, St. Mary”s and Berean Christian.
First-round games this weekend have Middletown hosting Clear Lake and Justin-Siena hosting St. Patrick/St. Vincent on Friday night at 7 p.m., and Ferndale hosting Dougherty Valley and Salesian hosting Fort Bragg on Saturday at 1 p.m.
Semifinals take place the weekend of Nov. 28-29. The winners of Clear Lake-Middletown and Fort Bragg-Salesian meet in one semifinal while the winners of Ferndale-Dougherty Valley and Justin-Siena-St. Patrick/St. Vincent meet in the other.
The Division IV championship game takes place either Dec. 5 or Dec. 6. The section winner is automatically eligible to represent Northern California in the state championship game the following weekend. A committee will decide from among a group of Northern California Division IV section winners who gets that honor.
Middletown and Clear Lake have met in the first round of the section playoffs twice before and Middletown has won each time — 31-19 in 1997 (Meyer”s first season as Clear Lake”s head coach) and 30-8 in 1991. The Mustangs advanced to the section finals both years, losing to Willits in 1991 and beating Cloverdale in 1997.
During the 2008 regular season, Middletown beat Clear Lake 34-0, Fort Bragg 22-8 and Salesian 49-28, all playoff teams.
In Middletown”s victory over Clear Lake on Oct. 3 in Middletown, quarterback Matt Outen passed for two touchdowns and running backs Eric Tomko and Tyler Owen each rushed for more than 100 yards and a TD. A steady rain fell throughout the game, hampering each team”s passing game. The Cardinals did win the turnover battle 2-1 but were otherwise bottled up by Middletown”s defense.
