MIDDLETOWN — You don”t tug on Superman”s cape, you don”t pull the mask off that old Lone Ranger and if you”re a football team about to take on the Middletown Mustangs, well, you probably ought not to charge onto the turf at newly christened Bill Foltmer Field in a showdown game behind a huge banner.
That may have been Kelseyville”s first mistake in a 56-0 rout, at least as far as members of the Middletown team — Dylan Finley, Luke Parker, Jereomy Hoefer and Kyle Brown among them — saw it.
Kelseyville quarterback Chris Aguon acknowledged that the banner was employed as a way to fire up the Knights. “Yeah, that”s what we were trying to do,” said Aguon, “because it”s hard to win here.”
The prevailing sentiment among the Mustangs was, “Uh-uh, not in our house.”
So ended a six-game winning streak for the Knights and so added a seventh straight win for Middletown, now 2-0 in the North Central League I North standings and solidly entrenched at the top of the league standings. The Mustangs” overwhelming victory followed by one week a rout of Fort Bragg and virtually assured they will complete the season as NCL I North champions by easily dispatching their main two rivals for the title.
By all accounts, it wasn”t supposed to end like this. Foltmer acknowledged as much.
“We practiced for 3 1/2 hours for three friggin” nights. My kids were tired. We put in some hard work this week. We took these guys very, very seriously,” the Mustang coach said. “You got a team coming in 6-1 and averaging 30 points a game. You”re not going to take them lightly.”
The hard work seemed warranted. On paper, anyway, Kelseyville seemed to be a team to be concerned about. The Knights, after all, had matched the Mustangs” six-game win streak and had an identical 6-1 record coming in.
But in moments after the start of the game such thinking was proven strictly illusory. Middlettown was up by 21-0 at the end of the first quarter and equaled that output in the second period to hold a 42-0 advantage at half. By then, David Pike had scored three TDs and Jake Davis two and the Mustang defense was solidly in charge. For Pike, the county”s leading scorer and rushing leader, the TDs on runs of 11, 27 and 19 yards, were his 19th, 20th and 21st. He was just 11 yards short of a 200-yard game on 13 carries. Davis finished with 61 yards on seven carries and two TDs — one in each of the first two quarters.
The Mustangs also made Kelseyville pay for two first-quarter mistakes, when Parker picked up a flub by the Kelseyville punter and rambled in from 35 yards. An interception that John Wesley-Davis ran back to the the Knights” 27 led to Pike”s scoring from the 11 just three plays later. Hoefer also scored and Pike”s replacement, Nolan Thachenko, added two more TDs in a mop-up role.
“I don”t think people understand when they look at comparitive scores,” said Foltmer. “Our games with teams like Clear Lake and Cloverdale are pretty much over after the first quarter. I knew our guys were going to be tough on defense. “Only Lower Lake and Willits remain in the path of another 9-1 season for Middletown.
Kelseyville, now 6-2 overall and 2-1 in the North, still has two games remaining in the regular season — home against St. Vincent next Friday and at Fort Bragg Nov. 12 — and the Knights will concentrate on winning so as to improve their chances of landing an at-large berth in the upcoming North Coast Section Division IV playoffs.
“We”ll go back to work on Monday,” Kelseyville first-year coach Rob Ishihara said.
Ishihara said he was impressed with just how well the Middletown defense took away the things the Knights were attempting to do on offense.
“They were very well prepared and a very physical team,” he said. “Their offensive and defensive lines played well and their linebackers were tough. We couldn”t get anything going on offense.”
Editor”s note: Sports editor Brian Sumpter contibuted to this story.
