LAKE COUNTY — Three county teams are in action, all of them on the road, going into the second weekend of the 2021 high school football season.
Friday’s action includes Clear Lake (1-0) against Pierce (0-1) at Arbuckle, Middletown (0-1) against Bradshaw Christian (1-0) in Sacramento, and Lower Lake (0-0) making its season debut against Vacaville Christian (2-0) in Vacaville. Kelsyeville (0-1) and Upper Lake (1-0), have byes as they prepare for the following weekend’s games on Sept. 10 — Kelseyville at Fortuna and Upper Lake at home against Crystal Springs Uplands.
Football and other fall sports teams now have the option of playing games Sunday should the need arise because of COVID-19-caused problems or fires/air quality issues. The California Interscholastic Federation made that possible on Tuesday by temporarily suspending CIF Bylaw 504.M, which prohibits game play on Sundays. Teams are still prohibited from practicing Sundays.
Middletown
Coming off a 25-14 loss to St. Mary’s of Albany in week one, the Mustangs face an even tougher assignment this week in Bradshaw Christian, a team that specializes in smash-mouth football. In fact, The Pride attempted only two passes in a 30-17 season-opening road win over Linden last weekend.
“This is our character game of the season,: Middletown head coach Bill Foltmer said. “They are a tough, physical opponent that runs the toss offense with some Delaware Wing-T. They are a physical, come-at-you team.”
Foltmer said Bradshaw Christian reminds him a lot of a team the Mustangs faced every year when they were members of the old North Central League II, the Tomales Braves led by their longtime head coach Leon Feliciano (1996-2014), a member of the Marin Athletic Federation Hall of Fame.
“He was one of the top toss offense coaches in the nation,” Foltmer said of Feliciano, who still stays in contact with the Middletown coach.
“We’ll need to stay low and control the line of scrimmage,” Foltmer said. “And our linebackers have to bee aggressive.”
How good is Bradshaw Christian’s running game? They rushed for 404 yards against Linden and five different players rushed for 59 or more yards, three for more than 80.
“They have two backs and both are athletic and fast,: Folmter said. “One is a little more physical than the other, but they both can break it. They don’t run a lot of plays, but the things they do, they do well. They are three yards and a cloud of dust, a four-down team if they have to be.”
Eliminating some of the mistakes the Mustangs made against St. Mary’s is key, according to Foltmer.
“Sometimes seeing yourself on film being passive or taking the path of least resistance, that can really motivate you,” Foltmer said of his players’ reaction when looking at the St. Mary’s game film. “We just have to get better every week. We can’t make the same mistakes. My star players have to play better this week.”
Even if Middletown brings its “A” game to Bradshaw Christian’s homefield, the Mustangs have their work cut out, according to Foltmer.
“We know what we have to do, but even if we play well it’s going to be a tough game,” he said.
The Mustangs will enter play with a handful of players available to them who were not able to suit up for St. Mary’s. Two of them, Jackson Schuster and Oscar Cruz, could end up being starters on the offensive/defensive line.
“These are two kids who can help us,” Foltmer said. “Jackson (a lineman) is a very strong kid.”
As is Cruz, a 6-foot, 220-pound sophomore.
“They give us more depth on the line,” Foltmer said.
Lower Lake
Facing a Sac-Joaquin Section team in its season opener, the Lower Lake Trojans faced an added hurdle in that their opponent, Vacavile Christian, already has two games under its belt this season. While North Coast Section teams opened their season only last weekend, Sac-Joaquin Section schools started a week earlier.
The Falcons are also off to a 2-0 start and are coming off a 30-0 home victory last Friday against Stone Ridge Christian. They opened their schedule Aug. 20 with a 24-6 road win at Denair. Both games featured a heavy dose of Vacaville Christian’s running attack although their quarterback, junior Hunter Jackson, is a capable passer. Last week against Stone Ridge Christian he rushed 121 yards and a touchdown and passed for 106 yards and a TD. The team has nearly 600 yards rushing in its first two games.
“They look good on film, they look good on paper,” Lower Lake coach Jeremy Jakubowski said. “They have two kids who have Division II offers. Their line is pretty stout.”
Jakubowski said the Falcons’ two previous games gives them a significant advantage against the untested Trojans, who are putting on pads for the first time since November of 2019.
“They’re a little bit ahead of us,” Jakubowski said. “I think we’re hungry, but I don’t know if we’re ready for the caliber of team they have. We have athletes who can run in space with them as long as our line holds up.”
The varsity-only contest has afforded Jakubowski the opportunity to bring up three junior varsity players for the game, and he’ll take 19 or 20 players to Vacaville.
While the Trojans had an extra week to prepare for Vacaville Christian because of their bye last weekend, Jakubowski said it was counter productive because Lower Lake JVs didn’t have a good week of practice.
While Lower Lake has a tough opponent coming out of the blocks this season, Jakubowski said that doesn’t change his approach to the game.
“I don’t think they’re unbeatable, but we have to play our best game,” he said. “Our goal is to stay healthy, execute our plays and be competitive. The preseason is about improving before you get to league. That’s what we need to do.”
Clear Lake
The Cardinals play their first road game of the season Friday against a run-oriented Colusa team in Arbuckle.
“It’s a step up,” Clear Lake head coach Mark Cory said of the competition after last weekend’s 33-8 season-opening win at home against Ferndale. “Last week doesn’t matter.”
Pierce is physical, fairly fast and more likely to run the ball than throw it. Clear Lake played the Bears in both the 2019 and 2018 preseasons, losing 46-16 in their most recent meeting and 28-0 the year before that. Pierce opened its season a week ago with a 27-13 loss at Orland.
Whereas Orland kept the ball on the ground most of the time against Pierce, the Bears’ secondary figures to get a much better test Friday night when Clear Lake comes to town. Cardinals quarterback Jack Daskam passed for 142 yards and two touchdowns against Ferndale while working the ball down the field to a variety of receivers. The Cardinals relied more on their running game in the second half, rushing for a pair of touchdowns — one by Daskam and the other by running running Hank Ollenberger, who ran for two TDs overall.
Clear Lake and Pierce never had the chance to meet last season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but that’s not to say the two teams aren’t familiar with each other, aside from their meetings in 2018-19.
“Our kids know their group … we went head to head at one of the camps we went to,” Cory said.
How did they match up?
“It was good fun,” Cory said. “They held up against some of the bigger schools there and so did we at times.”
The Pierce game will take the Cardinals into a bye week Sept. 10.
Upper Lake
The Cougars, coming off a 46-0 season-opening win at Tomales, have a bye week as they prepare for their home opener Sept. 10 against Crystal Springs Uplands.
“I’m actually glad we have this week off because it’s fair week,” Upper Lake head coach Vince Moran said the Lake County Fair in Lakeport. “We have a lot of kids in FFA showing animals. We also have photo day, so there’s been a lot of distractions. The bye week worked out perfect.”
The Cougars not only came out of their season opener minus any injuries, but they’ve added a few players to their roster, all of whom should be ready to go for the Crystal Springs game.
While Upper Lake’s effort against Tomales was an encouraging start to the season, Moran said the Cougars have plenty of things to work on and improve before meeting the Gryphons, who open their 2021 schedule Saturday in Santa Rosa against Roseland University Prep.
“It set some expectations,” Moran said of the Cougars’ lopsided victory over the Braves. “We’re stressing to them in practice we need to get better.”
Speaking of stressing, the Cougars are also scrambling off the field to replace Laytonville on their 2021 schedule. The Warriors won’t field a team this season and Upper Lake was scheduled to play them twice this season — one league game and one non-league game. Now the Cougars have bye dates the weekends of Oct. 1-2 (originally Upper Lake’s homecoming game) and Oct. 29-30.
“We’re trying to find replacements,” Moran said.
Kelseyville
Also with a bye week this weekend are the Kelseyville Knights as they regroup from a season-opening 55-0 road loss to San Marin.
“The bye works out well for us because we identified a lot of the stuff we did wrong against San Marin after watching film and we do control it (the ability to fix it),” Kelseyville head coach Erick Larsen said.
As the Knights prepare to meet their next opponent, the Fortuna Huskies on Sept. 10 in Fortuna, they will be killing two or even threee birds with the same stone during game preparation.
“They are an option team and we’ll see that later this season (in league play) against St. Helena,” Larsen said. “They’re also a good trapping team, and that helps us prepare for Middletown,” Larsen said.
The focus in practice right now is eliminating mistakes, according to Larsen.
“Not making big-play mistakes, which killed us,” Larsen said of the San Marin loss. “The kids have a good attitude about looking at the film and identifying those mistakes.”
While the San Marin game wasn’t as competitive as the Knights would have liked, Larsen said among the positives were players seeing up close and personal exactly where they were lacking.
“The kids identified themselves as needing to be in better shape, so they’re not complaining about running wind sprints this week,” Larsen said.
