WILLITS — Willits kept it close for a half, but the Clear Lake Cardinals pulled away over the final two quarters to beat the Wolverines 48-16 in a North Central League I interlock varsity football game on Friday night at Maize Field.
Clear Lake (3-1) scored 14 points in each of the final three quarters while handing Willits (0-4) its 14th straight loss. The Wolverines went 0-10 a year ago.
“I”m still looking for four quarters of solid football from this group,” Clear Lake coach Schad Schweitzer said. “They (Wolverines) made me a little nervous in the first half, but we started to creep away in the second half.”
Clear Lake took a 20-16 lead into halftime after Willits scored in the final seconds of the half to make it a four-point game.
In the second half, running back Kevin Burt scored on a 3-yard run and he also added the conversion run to make it 28-16. Quarterback Ryan Richardson broke loss on a 35-yard run later in the period to boost the Cardinals” lead to 34-16.
Clear Lake added some insurance in the fourth quarter as Richardson hooked up with Chris Leloup on a 33-yard touchdown pass. Aaron Adams also scored on a 5-yard run.
“We just played better in the second half,” Schweitzer said. “We started to pound the ball and things started to go well. And our defense got some turnovers, which kept our offense on the field.”
A 3-yard Burt scoring run in the first quarter and a pair of touchdown runs by Ryan Lunas (16 carries for 94 yards) in the second quarter staked the Cardinals to a 20-8 lead.
On defense, Seth Glazier recovered a fumble and had a sack for the Cardinals.
