LAKEPORT — Big plays — and plenty of them — propelled the Willits Wolverines past the Clear Lake Cardinals 42-0 Friday night in a North Central League I varsity football battle for first place at Don Owens Stadium in Lakeport.
The Wolverines (3-0 league, 5-1 overall) share the league lead with the St. Helena Saints (3-0, 6-0) while the Cardinals (2-1, 2-4) fall a game back of both teams. Willits and St. Helena don”t meet until the final weekend of the season at Willits.
“They just whooped us,” said Willits alum and Clear Lake head coach Milo Meyer. “They”re the real deal.”
Willits held an 8-0 lead late in the first quarter when Clear Lake dropped a touchdown pass that would have narrowed the gap. On a halfback option play on fourth down, Omar Vazquez found Steven Edwards alone down the field but Edwards couldn”t come up with the ball cleanly.
The Wolverines moved the ball down the field and were in Cardinal territory where they converted a fourth-and-15 play, quarterback Kailer Collicott hooking up with Wyatt Sanderson on a 25-yard touchdown pass.
“Their quarterback was throwing the ball perfectly to his receivers ? it happened three times,” Meyer said.
Willits added another touchdown — again on a Collicott to Sanderson pass, this one traveling 6 yards — with 3:36 left in the first half.
Willits followed up each of its three first-half touchdowns with two-point conversions ? the first coming on a pass and the next two on runs.
Sanderson scored on runs of 67 and 7 yards in the third quarter and Collicott broke loose on a 71-yard touchdown run in the final period to round the scoring.
Clear Lake finished with 139 yards of total offense — all on the ground.
“We couldn”t get anything going,” Meyer said.
While Willits team statistics were not available, Meyer said the Wolverines piled up the yardage with several big plays.
“They had a lot of long runs,” Meyer said. “Their toss (offense) definitely hurt us.”
Two starters — Edwards (shoulder) and Jake Chapin (hand) — sustained injuries in the loss.
