LAKE COUNTY — For the second game in a row, Middletown”s Mustangs surpassed the 50-point mark last Saturday. But this time they won.
Scoring eight touchdowns for a second straight week, the M-towners thoroughly smothered badly outmanned Upper Lake on the Cougars” turf, 56-0. The first win of the Mustangs” young season followed a 57-52 loss to Salesian.
As has become almost commonplace in games against neighboring Lake County teams, Coach Bill Foltmer had called off his starters before the first half ended with Middletown leading 49-0. By that time, tailback David Pike had scored three TDs on runs of 14, 40 and 55 yards while running for 129 yards on only six carries. He also had a 25-yard pass reception. Four other Mustangs had also scored. In the first two games of his first varsity season, Pike has tallied five TDs and toted for 278 yards in 22 carries. Undersized fullback and linebacker Jereomy Hoefer, who in, in filling in for injured Jake Davis, has become the heart of the 2010 Mustangs, scored his fourth TD of the season and came in for special praise from Foltmer for his play on both sides of the ball.
Against Upper Lake, which, partly because of injuries to three key players, could suit up only 19 players, the Mustangs puffed up their statistics with two scoring drives of 90 yards, and others of 89 and 76 yards and overall 518 offensive yards.
Stung by a blocked punt and three turnovers ? all of which led directly to M-town scores ? the Cougars had less than 20 yards total offense and only two first downs. Their highpoint of the day was a 75-yard kickoff return by Bradley Brackett to Middletown”s 11, but they gave up the ball on downs at the 8.
Everything coach Airic Guerrero tried seem to backfire. Midway through the first quarter, with a fourth and 1 at the Cougar 40, he elected to go for a first down. But linebacker Chris Oatman stopped QB Bruce Tucker for zip. Two plays later with the ball still at the 40, Pike, with a key block from Conner Chick, broke loose for his second TD. Emerging as an all-league-level player, Oatman would be heard from again a minute later when he put the Mustangs up 21-0 with the 13-yard return of an interception.
“I feel for them a little bit, because they work just as hard as we do,” said Foltmer who was coaching against one of his former players. “Aric played for me in the first championship I had here.”
The Mustang gave tacit approval to the M-town running game. “I liked the energy of Jereomy Hoefer ? he played a great defensive game for us. Team-wise we”re going to get better as a defense,” he added. “Our passing game was just a little off today and we”ve got to work on that.”
Foltmer, who inactivates his starters so early in routs like this one that second-team players are becoming household names, went to his bench with 8:10 left in the second period at which point Pike”s 55-yard jaunt had just made it 42-0, went the rest of the way with subs. Kyle Brown, 6 for 12 for 77 yards and his fourth TD pass of the season, was replaced at quarterback by John Wesley Davis, who kept the ball on the ground for the last 2-1/2 quarters.
The mop-up gave 5-foot-6, 140-pound tailback Nolan Thachenko the opportunity to score the Mustangs” final two TDs on runs of 42 and 4 yards.
The game was mercifully sped to conclusion by not stopping the clock even for such maneuvers as moving the chain gang.
The presence of Middletown placekicker Danny Cardenas, who missed the Salesian game because of an injury, was a welcome addition.
Cardenas, was 8 for 8 in PATs. But it was also a haunting reminder of the six conversions the Mustangs failed to make in that game. If Cardenas had been active a week earlier and performed the same feat, they would have edged out the Pride in that wild and woolly affair, 60-57.
