PETALUMA — Within a span of four minutes during a decisive second quarter on Saturday, the Kelseyville Knights went from contenders to counted out against the St. Vincent Mustangs in a North Central League I interlock varsity football game at Petaluma.
Kris Farinha”s highlight-reel 68-yard touchdown run with 7:41 remaining in the first half delivered the first in a series of three critical blows against the Knights (3-6), turning a competitive contest into a relatively easy win for the Mustangs (7-2).
The run in question came on the first play after St. Vincent took over at its own 32-yard line following a Kelseyville punt. Already leading 14-6 at that point, St. Vincent simply did what it”s done on a hundred other occasions this season, put its faith in the guy wearing No. 20, the school”s all-time career rushing leader. Farinha took the handoff from quarterback Josh Wheless, dodged, weaved and sidestepped his way through a mind-boggling maze of Kelseyville defenders, all while angling his way toward the Kelseyville sideline. He shook one final would-be tackler near the first-down marker and then lit his afterburners up the sideline, pulling away from his pursuers in the process. A better run you won”t see given the number of Kelseyville players who had a shot at him in the first few yards.
“He”s been doing it all year,” St. Vincent coach Gary Galloway said of Farinha, who called it a day on offense after the first half, taking to the sidelines with 135 yards on 10 carries and two touchdowns. “It has really come together for him this season.”
“He”s a great back,” Kelseyville coach Thad Owens said. “But it was poor tackling on our part that led to it. If you”re not tackling you might as well not show up against a back and a team like that.”
The Knights drove 65 yards on 12 running plays for a touchdown in the first quarter to cut St. Vincent”s lead to 7-6, and it looked as though they might answer Farinha”s great run with a touchdown of their own.
Kelseyville moved the ball from its own 23 to the St. Vincent 24, where disaster struck again, this time in the form of a big play by the Mustangs” defense. On a second-and-six run, Nick Rodrigues was fighting for extra yardage after a short gain when junior lineman Jesse O”Keefe ripped the ball from his grasp and sprinted 79 yards in the other direction for a back-breaking touchdown that pushed St. Vincent”s lead to 28-6.
It only got worse from there as the Knights fumbled away the ensuing kickoff at the Kelseyville 32. St. Vincent found the end zone six plays later on a Wheless five-yard kept to make it 35-6.
And that was the game for all practical purposes.
“From our end of it we have to get rid of the big plays,” Owens said. “The big plays killed us. They”ve hurt us all season.”
Kelseyville”s day looked much more promising at the start even though the Knights” first possession ended on downs at the St. Vincent 30. Kelseyville was looking good until quarterback Mike Allen was sacked for a six-yard loss.
St. Vincent took over and covered the 70 yards to the end zone on nine plays capped by a Farinha seven-yard run. Eight of the nine plays were runs with one incomplete Wheless pass.
The Knights answered with their own touchdown drive, sharing the ball among running backs Morgan Nelson, Steven Grossner, Nick Rodrigues and Chad Marshall to move down the field. Nelson closed it out with a 1-yard plunge on fourth-and-one (the Knights could have picked up a first down at about the six-inch line) to make it 7-6. Nick Eastham blocked the PAT to keep St. Vincent in front.
Mixing up Farinha and Wheless runs with 23- and 27-yard completions, the Mustangs came right back to take a 14-6 lead, Wheless scoring on a three-yard keeper with 9:52 left.
St. Vincent”s reserves played nearly the entire second half on offense.
Kelseyville threatened on its first possession of the third quarter, another long drive that was kept alive when Allen hooked up with Jay Dedrick on a 26-yard pass on a third-and-nine play mid-drive. But the Knights were stopped short on a fourth-and-three run from the St. Vincent 19, Grossner gaining just a yard.
Galloway said the Mustangs did a much better job on run defense as the game progressed.
“We were trying to close down 42 (Nelson) in the middle and make them run outside, which we did,” Galloway said.
Kelseyville still ended up rushing for 275 yards, getting 83 yards from Nelson, 81 from Rodrigues and another 71 from Grossner. In fact, the Knights outgained the Mustangs 316-289, a deficit that was offset by St.Vincent”s 3-0 advantage in turnovers and the big-play prowess of Farinha.
The Knights scored the only touchdown of the second half, a 13-yard pass from Allen to Rodrigues, with no time remaining in the game. It was Kelseyville”s first touchdown pass of the season and it capped off a pretty decent day throwing the ball for Allen, who was 6-for-11 for 56 yards.
“Mike Allen is throwing the ball nice,” Owens said. “We”re just struggling at catching the ball right now.”
Looking ahead to his winner-take-all NCL I South finale Friday night in Cloverdale — both teams bring 3-0 league records into that game — Galloway said, “We”ve got to have our best week of practice. We”re playing on their field against a well-coached football team. It”s the kind of game that the final week of the season is all about.”
Win or lose, the Mustangs will be advancing to the Division V playoffs, most likely as the No. 1 seed. Kelseyville finishes up Friday night at home against Fort Bragg (7-2) in NCL I North action.
