LAKE COUNTY — The first big North Central League I game of the 2011 season takes place Friday night at Maize Field as the Willits Wolverines host the Middletown Mustangs.
Middletown (2-2) travels to Mendocino County looking for its third straight victory while Willits (3-1) is trying to make it two consecutive wins. Both teams opened league play a week ago with relatively easy road wins. The Mustangs blanked Lower Lake 35-0 at Lower Lake while the Wolverines roughed up Kelseyville 52-25 at Kelseyville.
In other NCL I action tonight, Clear Lake (1-0, 1-3) visits Cloverdale (0-1, 0-4), Kelseyville (0-1, 0-4) calls on St. Helena (1-0, 4-0), and Lower Lake (0-1, 0-4) hits the road to play Fort Bragg (0-1, 2-2).
On Saturday, the Upper Lake Cougars (3-1) host the Tomales Braves (2-2) in the NCL II opener for both teams. The junior varsity game kicks off at noon.
Middletown at Willits
The Wolverines gave the Ukiah Wildcats all they could want two weeks ago in a wild 55-40 loss at Ukiah. Last week against Kelseyville, Willits pulled away in the second half, manhandling the smaller Knights in the process.
Middletown opened the season with back-to-back losses to undefeated Salesian (4-0) and Upper Lake before bouncing back nicely against Brookside Christian and Lower Lake, outscoring the two by a combined 76-8. If the Mustangs win tonight, it will be coach Bill Foltmer”s 200th career victory at the school and his 219th overall.
Rain hit the Willits area pretty hard earlier in the week but clear skies are forecast for Friday.
“This is one of those games I would look to as far as seeing who are the top teams in the league,” Foltmer said. “The team to beat is St. Helena, but they”re a smaller, faster team that might have problems with a bigger, more physical toss-offense team like Willits.
“That toss offense eats up the clock ? before you know eight minutes are gone,” Foltmer said of the Wolverines, who have had no problems scoring points this season (189 in four games).
“Offensively they are really good,” Foltmer said. “They are big, they are physical and they have backs who run really well.”
If the Wolverines are vulnerable, it”s on defense, according to Foltmer, citing the 55 points they allowed to Ukiah two weeks ago and the 25 they gave up to Kelseyville last week.
“There”s an opportunity to keep their offense off the field with our offense ? we need sustained drives,” Foltmer said.
“I see the game as a chance for either Middletown or Willits to step up and challenge St. Helena,” Foltmer added.
Lower Lake at Fort Bragg
The Trojans haven”t scored a point their last two games and reaching the end zone is foremost on their minds as they make the long trip to Fort Bragg to play the Timberwolves, who dropped a 21-14 decision to Clear Lake in their league opener last weekend in Lakeport.
“We haven”t been able to cross that line,” Lower Lake coach Mike Huffman said of the goal line. “Last week we had two or three chances and couldn”t do it, but I see things coming together for us. I think we have the gameplan.”
Lower Lake will open the game with Jay Peters behind center although Huffman expects to use Richard Tucker at some point.
“We”ve been running a two-quarterback system in practice,” Huffman said. “We”re trying to see who will be our quarterback down the line.”
Peters and Tucker are both juniors. Tucker opened the season as the first-string signal caller but missed last week”s game for disciplinary reasons, giving Peters the start. He responded by going 6-for-9 for 28 yards and one interception.
“We”re creating a lot of competition for positions in practice,” Huffman said. “We”re trying to make the practices as tough as we can so that they can just go out there and relax during games.”
Huffman said the Trojans will have to keep an eye out for Fort Bragg middle linebacker Nick Ryken (No. 30).
“He”s a player,” Huffman said.
Lower Lake enters the game healthy and with a good week of practice under its belt, according to Huffman.
“We”re as healthy as we can be,” he said.
n Kelseyville at St. Helena
The winless Knights take on the undefeated Saints in a game that would appear to be a mismatch on paper. Coming off a 50-0 rout of winless Cloverdale a week ago in St. Helena, St. Helena hasn”t been tested since its week-one 23-21 road victory over Berean Christian (3-1). Since then, the Saints have overpowered St. Vincent 52-21, Tomales 47-8 and Cloverdale.
Kelseyville hung tough with Willits for a half in its league opener a week ago. The Wolverines used two big plays ? a long kickoff return for a touchdown and a hook-and-lateral TD in the final seconds of the half ? to open up a 22-13 halftime lead. But Willits dominated Kelseyville over the final two quarters.
The Wolverines will still use the onside kick if they think they can surprise you, Kelseyville coach Rob Ishihara said following the game.
“If not they”ll kick it deep,” Ishihara said.
Clear Lake at Cloverdale
Coming off a 21-14 win over Fort Bragg, a game in which the Clear Lake defense played solid nearly the entire way, the Cardinals can stay atop the NCL I standings by beating the Cloverdale Eagles on their home turf at Daly Field.
While winless on the season, the Eagles have been right there a couple of times, losing both of their home games to date by narrow margins ? 19-12 to Fort Bragg and 20-19 to a St. Vincent team that beat Clear Lake 42-21.
“They lost by one to a team that we lost to by 21,” Clear Lake coach Milo Meyer said of St.Vincent.”I”ve been trying to get that point across to the kids all week.”
Meyer is also hoping to get a repeat effort from his defense, which was scored on early in the Fort Bragg game and again very late but owned the Timberwolves in between.
“We”re not a team that”s going to score a lot of points, so we need that from our defense,” Meyer said.
During Clear Lake coach Milo Meyer”s first stint as the Cardinals coach (1997-2008), trips to Cloverdale didn”t always produce the best results, especially in terms of injuries as they lost such star players as Ronnie Cruz (who went on to play in the NFL) and Randy Sondag (a member of the Mendocino College Hall of Fame).
“We actually broke that streak the last couple of times we went there,” Meyer said. “But there was a time when we always had an injury.”
Tomales at Upper Lake
Smash-mouth football meets smash-mouth football on Saturday as the Upper Lake Cougars entertain the Tomales Braves in the NCL II opener for both teams.
“We run very similar styles of offense trying to get as many people at the point of attack as possible,” Upper Lake coach Alex Stabiner said.
Rainy weather has taken the Cougars out of their normal tempo in practice, according to Stabiner. “We”ve had people out with sniffles and colds and we”ve put the ball on the ground more than I like to. Honestly I”m a little worried. The rain throws another variable into the mix.”
Clear skies and temperatures in the mid-70s are predicted for Saturday”s game.
While the Braves enter play with a .500 record, Stabiner said Tomales is “no pushover” and Upper Lake will have to be ready.
“They have two really good running backs. One is No. 20 (Michael Guerrero) and the other is No. 25 (Justin Brady) their fullback. They run the ball really well, their offensive line moves people, and they have pretty good linebackers.”
Guererro leads the team with 324 rushing yards and two touchdowns.
