LAKEPORT ? Taking nothing away from Kelseyville, a 34-20 winner over Clear Lake on Friday night, the Knights, in fact, had a lot of help.
… From Clear Lake.
In a game that clearly fits the profile of “we have met the enemy and he is us,” Clearlake frittered away its chances of winning by making crucial mistakes at exactly the wrong moment. What”s more, Clear Lake coach Schad Schweitzer said it was the third game in a row that followed this suicidal pattern. Not coincidentally, all three were losses.
“We got better in this game,” but we still have not eliminated the mistakes and have not been able to capitalize on the things we should be capitalizing on. Mistakes are killing us. We get our momentum going and then we shoot ourselves in the foot.”
Case in point, on Friday night at Clearlake, the Cardinals were down 14-6 in the second quarter when they put together a magnificent 21-play drive that included two clutch fourth-down conversions and carried them from their own 1 0 to a first-and-goal at the Kelseyville 5. T hey drew a 5-yard penalty and then lost yardage on their first three plays found themselves all the way back to the 17. So at least the Cardinals could salvage a field goal out their efforts? Right? Wrong!
Somehow the kick for the field goal wound up going astray and into the hands of surprised Knights linebacker Ethan Rohner, who wasn”t quite sure what to do with the ball.
“I caught it, but I thought it was a dead ball,” Rohner said, “I had taken a couple of steps toward the ref to give him the ball, but then I thought there was no whistle.”
So, eventually what Rohner did was run the errant kick 80 yards for a touchdown for the last play of the first half, which put Clearlake in a 21-6 hole..
The play, both coaches agreed, was the decisive point in the game.
Another opportunity was wasted by the Cards in the third quarter when a pass play from their 44 with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty tacked on to it carried them to the K”ville 29 where, on first down they fumbled the ball away.
“Most definitely,” said the Knights” Rob Ishihara. “It was right before the half. We hadn”t had a lot of luck on special teams and that was really a great big play for us.”
To be completely fair, the Knights might have won without help from Clearlake. Running backs Nick Rodrigues and Geno Poloni each rushed for more than 100 yards and a combined three touchdowns.
Overall, the game had its share of twists and turns. Midway through the first quarter there was a 95-yard kickoff return by Clearlake”s Tanner Mansell in direct response to a Poloni”s 22-yard TD run capping as seven-play drive that was exactly as long as Mansell”s run. The Cards also had a Eddy Lyons-to-Mansell 60-yard pass play for their second TD. But on this night, it was the steadiness of the Knights that prevailed. In addition to the 95-yard drive, they had another taking them 48 yards in seven plays for their second score and traveled 79 yards on six plays for their final score.
The win was the second in three outings for Kelseyville under Ishihara in his first year. The Knights were 3-7 last year.
Ishihara said this win was bigger than K”ville”s victory over Cloverdale.
“It was a rivalry game and no matter what the records are, a rivalry is always a big, big game,” he said.
To add to the tradition Kelseyville took home the “Big Bass” trophy, which is a wood-carved fish with a football in its mouth.
