LAKE COUNTY >> If the seedings play out to form Friday and Saturday, three Lake County teams are headed to the North Coast Section Division V semifinals, and two of them – Middletown and Kelseyville – will meet in one of those two semifinal-round games the weekend of Nov. 24-25.
For that to happen, No. 2 seed Middletown (8-1), No. 3 seed Kelseyville (7-2) and No. 4 seed Clear Lake (6-3) all need to beat the team standing directly in front of them going into this weekend’s round of quarterfinal games. Up first are the Middletown Mustangs, who host the Ferndale Wildcats (5-6) Friday night at 7 p.m. at Bill Foltmer Field. On Saturday night, Kelseyville is home against the Willits Wolverines (2-8) and Clear Lake hosts the Arcata Tigers (8-4), both games kicking off at 7 p.m.
Also on Friday, No. 1 seed St. Patrick/St. Vincent (8-1) of Vallejo hosts Stellar Prep.
While Middletown, Kelseyville and Clear Lake all had first-round byes, their opponents are coming off opening-round wins. Ferndale beat Berean Christian 13-7, Willits upset Fort Bragg 13-7, and Arcata routed Elsie Allen 47-12 after leading just 6-0 at halftime.
Ferndale at M’town
Ferndale and Middletown squared off in the playoffs three times in six years in the first decade of the 200s and the Wildcats won all three meetings on their home turf — 12-0 in 2000, 26-13 in 2004 in a game contested at Humboldt State, and 17-3 in 2005, the last time the two teams met.
“They opened the year in a spread offense, but after losing a few in a row they went back to what Ferndale does best, and that’s run the football,” Foltmer said of the Wildcats under first-year coach Jeremy Griffith, who replaced longtime veteran Kim Jorgensen. “They run I-formation, split back option/veer and they’re playing a lot better since they made the change.”
Senior running back Wyatt Coppini is the backbone of the Ferndale attack, according to Foltmer.
“He’s basically their offense. He’ll carry the ball 30 times and we can’t let him break a big one.”
Ferndale has the type of offense that can frustrate a defense by “chipping the ball down the field,” according to Foltmer. “They can do it.”
Foltmer expects Ferndale’s defense to pack the box and make life as miserable as possible for Middletown’s running attack, a tactic the Mustangs have encountered plenty of times this season as well as in past years. Willits did exactly that two weeks ago when the Mustangs last played and quarterback Luke Holt responded by completing eight of 10 passes for 233 yards and two touchdowns in Middletown’s 28-7 victory.
“Luke Holt is coming off the best game of his career,” Foltmer said.
As for field conditions after a rainy Wednesday and Thursday, Foltmer said a muddy turf works more to Ferndale’s advantage than Middletown’s since they’re used to it.
“The forecast looks good, so it should be OK,” Foltmer said. “We haven’t been on it this week, so I really can’t tell you how it is.”
Willits at Kelseyville
It’s the second meeting between these two teams and the first was thoroughly dominated by the Knights, who won 63-30 on Oct. 27 in Kelseyville.
Kelseyville coach Erick Larsen said the Knights can’t hang their hat on that because of recent history. It was only a year ago the the Knights lost 40-8 to Middletown in their league meeting, only to bounce back and beat the Mustangs 14-12 in the playoffs.
“Last year we lost to Middletown the first time by almost the same margin we beat Willits this year,” Larsen said.
“They have athletes who can make plays,” Larsen said of the Wolverines.
The bye has given the Knights plenty of time to work on things that needed attention heading into the postseason and they’ve tried to make their practices as productive as possible.
“We’ve really worked on our running attack, inside in particularly. If they load the box, we’ve worked on our passing game to get the ball outside,” Larsen said.
Field conditions appear to be OK although there are a few soft spots after the first heavy rainfall of the season, according to Larsen.
Should the Knights win, does Larsen have a preference as to which team he’ll face in the semifinals — either Middletown or Ferndale?
“We’re not looking that far ahead,” he said. “You can’t anticipate who you are going to play.”
Arcata at Clear Lake
Clear Lake coach Mark Cory has a pretty good scouting report from the Arcata Tigers’ last two games – their playoff win last week against Elsie Allen in Arcata, and a 51-14 loss to Eureka a week before that at Eureka High School, which is where Cory served as a longtime assistant coach before taking over the Clear Lake program in 2016.
Just as the Cardinals’ program was struggling before Cory’s arrival, so was Arcata’s until head coach Jamal Jones took over as the Tigers’ head coach, also in 2016. After a 1-8 campaign in 2015, the Tigers bounced back into respectability last season at 5-6, their final game a 51-6 road loss to Kelseyville in the first round of the playoffs. They take a 8-4 record (two of those wins were forfeits over McKinleyville) into Saturday’s action at Don Owens Stadium where the Cardinals are hosting a playoff game for the first time since 2007 and looking for their first postseason victory — home or away — since 2005.
“They’ve got a really good running back, a couple of good receivers and a quarterback who throws the ball decently,” Cory said of the Tigers. “They run a 4-3 and 4-4 on defense, very similar to what we’ve seen in our league.”
As always, Cory is more concerned with what his own players are doing.
“We’ve had a good couple of weeks in practice and I feel like we’re getting better, and that’s the key at this point,” he said.
Following the time change with the end of daylight savings earlier this month, Cory said he has focused on keeping his practices on point and up-tempo.
“We have less light so our practices have been shorter,” he said.
While the Cardinals have plenty to shoot for against Arcata in terms of team goals — a first playoff victory in more than a decade and a chance to reach the sectional semifinals — there is also a county record up for grabs Saturday night when senior quarterback Alex Adams leads the Cardinals onto the field.
Adams needs 155 passing yards to break Lake County’s single-season record of 1,978 set just last weekend by Lower Lake’s Hokulani Wickard, who passed for 217 yards in a playoff loss to Piedmont to erase the old record of 1,868 set by Upper Lake’s Mike Merchen in 1990.
“It’s really a cool deal,” Cory said. “A lot of people probably didn’t see him in the position to do this when the season began.”
Cory said Adams actually approached him before the start of the season and told his coach that he wanted to break the Clear Lake record of 1,711 yards set by Zane Jensen in 2001. Adams achieved that goal in a 25-0 win over St. Helena in the Cardinals’ regular-season finale two weeks ago.
“I told him I didn’t know if we were going to be that kind of team, but he has led us in that direction,” Cory said of Adams’ passing prowess. “He’s had a great season.”
