CALISTOGA — Held off the scoreboard until the fourth quarter, the Upper Lake Cougars fell 10-6 to the Calistoga Wildcats in a North Central League II varsity football stunner on Friday night at Calistoga.
The Cougars suffered an even bigger loss, however, as starting fullback/defense end Joey Valdez, a senior, sustained a broken leg in the third quarter while pursing a Calistoga running back.
“He was pursing to the ball, he rolled his ankle and said he heard a pop,” Upper Lake coach Alex Stabiner said of the Valdez injury.
Upper Lake”s first league loss in five games leaves the NCL II race, which still has two weeks to go, tied up in knots. The Cougars drop to 4-1 in the league standings and 5-3 overall. California School of the Deaf beat Stellar Prep 57-6 on Friday night to move into a first-place tie with Upper Lake, and the winner of today”s game between St. Vincent (3-1) and Tomales (3-1) in Petaluma will also share the league lead. Calistoga is just a game back at 3-2.
“We”re still in first place in league technically and we still have the playoffs in front of us,” Stabiner said. “We”re still in it.”
Calistoga broke up a scoreless deadlock on a Dylan Alvarado 3-yard in the third quarter to go up 7-0. The Wildcats added a 40-yard field goal off the foot of Danny Alfaro in the fourth quarter to make it 10-0 before Upper Lake finally scored on a Ward Beecher 8-yard run in the fourth quarter.
Beecher finished with 94 yards on 17 carries and also had two receptions for 35 yards, but it wasn”t enough to lift Upper Lake to a fifth consecutive win.
Upper Lake appeared to have a touchdown in the second quarter when quarterback Travis Coleman gained 40 yards on a sweep. As he was stretching out with to reach the goal line, the ball came loose and a Calistoga player recovered it in the end zone for a touchback.
“We were arguing he had broken the plain before the ball came out, but the ref called it differently,” Stabiner said.
Calistoga”s linebackers helped stuff the Upper Lake running game most of the night, according to Stabiner.
“The Calistoga linebackers did a good job stuffing it on our play side and pursing from the back side,” Stabiner said.
