LAKEPORT — What a better way to celebrate your 59th birthday than with a come-from-behind 26-18 victory over a team your school hasn’t beaten since 2007.
That was Clear Lake High School varsity football head coach Mark Cory’s birthday present Friday night as the Cardinals, trailing by 12-0 and 18-6 deficits in the second quarter, rallied to beat the Middletown Mustangs in a North Central League I football battle at Don Owens Stadium in Lakeport.
Clear Lake (2-0 league, 4-1 overall) scored 20 unanswered points against Middletown (1-1, 2-3) to win its third straight game. More importantly, the Cardinals beat a team that has tortured them both at home and away for more than a decade, and they did it with a balanced attack on offense and an opportunistic defense that has excelled at turning opponent’s turnovers into touchdowns this season.
“It was definitely a heavyweight fight,” Cory said. “They took their shots at us and we were wobbling (in the first half).”
Trying for a 13th straight win over Clear Lake, Middletown fought to the end. The Mustangs, aided by a 15-yard penalty, drove to the Clear Lake 10-yard-line in the final minutes, but a fourth-and-five pass from quarterback Luke Hoogendoorn was broken up by Clear Lake safety Zane Robinson, and the Cardinals took a knee to run out the clock as the Mustangs had used up all their timeouts and couldn’t stop it.
“It was a good night, no doubt about it,” Cory said of the Cardinals’ long losing streak against Middletown coming to an end on his birthday.
“We had our opportunity at the end,” Middletown head coach Bill Foltmer said. “We struggled on offense in the second half until that final drive. My kids played hard and they worked hard in practice all week, so there was no lack of effort. We just came out on the short end tonight against a good Clear Lake team.”
Unable to stop the Mustangs on the ground in the first half, which ended with Middletown up 18-13, Clear Lake didn’t make any dramatic defensive adjustments at halftime, according to Cory.
“Somebody told me after the game that we shut them out in the second half,” Cory said. “I didn’t even know it, I was concerned with too many other things. We just played better on defense in the second half. We played like we’re capable of playing.”
Much of the first half resembled too many of the meetings between these two teams since Clear Lake’s last win over MIddletown in 2007. The Mustangs were moving the ball at will on the ground against the Cardinals’ defense, according to Cory.
“They came out and were taking it to us,” Cory said. “We just couldn’t come up with the stop we needed.”
Middletown opened up a 12-0 lead on the strength of a pair of Elijah Diaz 6-yard runs — the first coming in the first quarter and the second early in the second quarter. Diaz finished with 127 yards on 31 carries.
“We chipped the ball down the field on them,” Foltmer said. “They were knocking us around, doing what Middletown does,” Cory added.
Middletown got the ball back on a punt deep in its own territory but fumbled on first down and Clear Lake recovered at the 3-yard-line. Tyler Haskell scored on a run on the next play to cut the Mustangs’ advantage to 12-6. The fumble-turned-touchdown changed the game’s momentum, according to both coaches.
“Once they fumbled and we scored, it gave us a little bit of energy,” Cory said. “They figured out they could play with these guys.”
“That fumble just kind of changed momentum and we had a tough time getting it back,” Foltmer added.
Even with the turnover that led to Clear Lake’s first score, Middletown pushed its lead back up to 12 points as Diaz scored his third touchdown of the first half on a 5-yard run with 4:52 left in the half. That made it 18-6.
Clear Lake answered with a scoring drive of its own, running back Ethan Maize taking it in for the touchdown on a 6-yard run with 3:32 left. Robinson’s PAT kick made it 18-13.
The Cardinals, an excellent passing team led by quarterback Jack Daskam and a host of receivers, changed things up on Middletown’s defense to open the second half, taking the kickoff and marching down the field with run after run instead of pass after pass. Clear Lake was poised at the Middletown 6 when Daskam was sacked back to the 13, but on a third-and-long play that followed the senior quarterback connected with Robinson for a touchdown, giving the Cardinals what proved to be the game-winning score as Robinson also added the extra point for a 20-18 lead.
“They put together a nice drive to take the lead,” Foltmer said. “By the time we tightened things up against their run it was too late.”
Clear Lake was on the move again late in the third quarter and made it as far as the Middletown 2 early in the fourth quarter before turning it over on downs. The Mustangs went three and out before punting the ball back to the Cardinals, who inherited great field position at the Middletown 28 with the aid of an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on the Mustangs.
A short scoring drive was capped by a 9-yard pass from Daskam to Cody Hayes for a 26-18 lead.
“Really a great effort by our guys,” said Cory, who said he discussed the Cardinals’ tough stretch against Middletown (0-12 since 2007) during a pregame talk.
“I told them ‘you’re not part of it,'” Cory said. “I have only two guys back this year who played against them in 2019. (there was no 2020 game because of the COVID-19 pandemic). All those other games they didn’t have anything to do with, it wasn’t their fault.”
Cory is now 1-4 against Middletown since taking over the Clear Lake football program in 2016.
The victory leaves Clear Lake and St. Helena, a 56-0 winner Friday night in Lower Lake, as the league’s only two undefeated teams. Cloverdale (1-1) fell 24-7 to Willits (1-1) and Kelseyville (1-1) prevailed 43-12 in Fort Bragg (0-2).
Game notes: Clear Lake rushed for 98 yards and passed for 98 yards as Daskam went 10-for-18 and two TDs … Middletown had 211 yards rushing but only 26 in the air … The lost fumble by the Mustangs that set up Clear Lake’s first touchdown was the only turnover of the game … Clear Lake’s Hayes has touchdown receptions in each of his last two games … Middletown won the junior varsity game 46-12, giving the Mustangs a 1-0-1 record in their first two league games.
