MIDDLETOWN — It”s all in the past for Upper Lake.
In just two games this season, the Cougars have blotted out more than a decade of football mediocrity. That much was plain Friday night at Bill Foltmer Stadium where they defeated Middletown”s Mustangs 18-14, a team Upper Lake hadn”t beaten on the road in 17 years, and, in fact, had rarely succeeded in scoring upon.
The triumph came a week after the Cougars overwhelmed a league champion in Portola Valley — the first “stepping stone” as first-year Cougar coach Alex Stabiner called it in a so-far remarkable season.
Upper Lake did it the hard way, marching 67 yards for the winning touchdown in a clock-eating drive during which the Cougars simply “out-physicaled” the Mustangs. Or maybe a better term would be out-wrestled them, given that three-quarters of the Cougars are also on the Upper Lake wrestling team by Stabiner”s estimate. Mustang coach Bill Foltmer quickly acquiesced to that. It was the best Upper Lake team he had seen in 20 years, he said.
“They were physical. It wasn”t just about their skill kids. We knew what was coming, but they marched down the field, scored, and didn”t leave us any time on the clock,” Foltmer said after diminutive running back Ward Beecher”s 2-yard scoring run with 1:48 remaining iced the game.
“They kind of exploited our weaknesses,” added Foltmer, who finds himself in the unusual position of being 0-2 to begin the season. “It was Upper Lake”s good play that won the game. They beat us and they beat us at a tough place to get a win.”
Gracious in defeat, the Middletown coach refused to equiviocate over the fact that he was forced to start a third-string tailback behind Danny Hulme and D.J. Brookshire. Drew Tyler, the third-stringer, he said, performed well and, in fact, scored the temporary go-ahead TD on a 15-yard run to culminate a seven-play, 65-yard drive early in the third quarter that made it 14-12 in the Mustangs” favor. He also carried the bulk of a 75-yard first-quarter touchdown drive with eight carries in 10 plays.
“I don”t think that was our problem,” Foltmer said. “They beat us up. “
That, in fact, was the Upper Lake game plan, said Stabiner. “We knew it was going to be a physical game and we knew we had a physical team,” he said. “Our game plan was to keep running the ball.”
It became clear in the first quarter that this was not going to be a tiptoe through the tulips for Middletown as past games against Upper Lake often were. The Cougars answered the Mustangs” 75-yard first-period scoring drive, which ended with a Kyle Brown 17-yard touchdown pass to Nick Dellia, with one of their own, going 85 yards in six plays, the final 50 on a touchdown run by Bradley Brackett with 3:58 left in the opening stanza. The Cougars took the lead midway through the second quarter on a 13-yard Travis Coleman- to-Joe Valdez pass after a blocked punt by Valdez set them up at the Middletown 20.
Brackett finished with 176 yards on 22 carries for Upper Lake while Drew had 118 yards on 14 carries for Middletown.
“Middletown was special for us for a number of reasons,” Stabiner reasoned. “Our first three games are our toughest ones. Portola Valley was tops in their division, Middletown was a runner-up for a sectional championship and we have Hoopa, a sectional champion, next week (at Hoopa).”
How have the Cougars shaken off all those so-so seasons to reach a pinnacle at this particular moment in time?
“We have a lot of people, including the players and the community, who believe in us,” Stabiner said. “And we”re just ready.”
