LAKEPORT — There wasn’t much left of the Cloverdale Eagles by the time the Clear Lake Cardinals were finished with them Friday night in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division 7 football playoffs at Don Owens Stadium in Lakeport.
Despite bolting to a 13-0 lead on long touchdown runs by Diesel Cavallo and Cole Grell in the first quarter, the Eagles walked off the field 47-13 losers to the Cardinals, who now advance to the semifinals next Friday when they host the Kelseyville Knights at 7 p.m., a rematch of the Bass Bowl game won 43-33 by Clear Lake on Sept. 23 in Lakeport.
Cloverdale (6-5) struck quickly on Cavallo’s 79-yard touchdown run and Grell’s 57-yard run — both down the Clear Lake sideline — for a 13-0 lead with 2:47 remaining in the opening quarter. Before the Cardinals could even think about their predicament, the same guy who has rescued them so many times this season struck again — and in a heartbeat
Junior Hank Ollenberger fielded the ensuing kickoff and raced up the middle 95 yards for a touchdown.
How big a play was that?
“Hank O, Big Shot call ’em what you want,” Clear Lake head coach Mark Cory said. “Every time we’ve found ourselves in a spot this season where we’ve needed a big play, he’s given it to us. That’s like the fourth or fifth time he’s done that. He has great vision, great speed and hits those creases.”
Added Cory, “When they kicked it deep (to Ollenberger), I thought ‘oh good.’ That changed things for us. We were on fire after that.”
Clear Lake’s defense then came up with one of many big fourth-down stops on a night when the Eagles were in four-down territory pretty much no matter where they were on the field. Facing a fourth-and-inches play from the Clear Lake 37, Cloverdale quarterback Mason Caturegli, who carried the ball 27 times in the first half for 112 yards, was stuffed at the line of scrimmage. The Cardinals took over and had a 14-13 lead two plays later when quarterback Jake Soderquist connected with tight end Cody Hayes on a 59-yard touchdown. The Cloverdale player guarding Hayes attempted to pick off the ball and came up empty as Hayes raced to the end zone.
Cloverdale’s one and only punt of the game ended its next possession and Clear Lake marched 63-yards for another touchdown, this one on a 2-yard pass from Soderquist to Ollenberger on third-and-goal.
The Eagles came within six inches of scoring in the final seconds of the half, but Clear Lake’s defense stopped Caturegli dead in his tracks as time ran out.
And that was the last time Cloverdale would get near the end zone, reminiscent of a game between these same two teams just a week ago in Cloverdale where the Cardinals rallied from two touchdowns down for a 22-21 win.
Sound familiar?
“Our defense in the first half of that game wasn’t great, but we played lights out in the second half,” Cory said of the first meeting between the two teams.
And it was more of the same Friday. Cloverdale had six possessions end on downs when fourth-down runs, most of them by Caturegli, were rebuffed by Clear Lake’s defense. The final three times that happened in the second half resulted in Clear Lake touchdowns.
“When you run just one player like that, it’s tough,” Cory said of the Eagles’ dependence on Caturegli, who is just a freshman. While he finished with 37 carries for 152 yards, he also took a ton of hits in the process and wasn’t the same runner by the second half.
The Cardinals quickly extended their 20-13 halftime lead by taking the second-half kickoff and driving 57 yards in six plays for a touchdown, Ollenberger scoring on a 3-yard run for his third TD of the game.
After inheriting great field position after a fourth-down stop at the Cloverdale 40, the Cardinals pushed their lead to 32-16 on a 17-yard pass from Soderquist to Saul Reyes on third-and-long. Soderquist made the play possible when he stepped up inside to elude Cloverdale’s strong outside pass rush, buying time for Reyes to work his way into the clear.
When Cloverdale again came up short on a fourth-down run, this time at the Clear Lake 38-yard line, the Cardinals needed only one play to go ahead 39-13 as Jesse Hayes broke free on a 62-yard touchdown run up the middle.
A light rain began to fall in the fourth quarter by which point the Eagles were just trying to get out of Don Owens Stadium without any more damage being done. When a Cloverdale drive stalled on downs early in the quarter, Clear Lake opened up a 47-13 lead on Ollenberger’s fourth touchdown of the night, this time a 1-yard run that capped a 60-yard drive. Such was the Cardinals’ good fortune by this point of the game that a botched extra-point kicked turned into a two-point conversion pass from Soderquist to Ayden Williamson.
With a running clock now in effect, the Eagles spent the rest of the fourth quarter handing the ball off to fullback Ayal Fichtelberg.
Looking ahead to a second meeting with Kelseyville this season, Cory said he wasn’t surprised at all by the Knights’ 48-30 win over No. 3 seed St. Patrick-St. Vincent in another first-round game Friday.
“I knew they were going to win that game and I knew we were going to see them again, that’s just how things were going to work out (with the seedings).”
Added Cory of a Bass Bowl rematch with the red-hot Knights, winners of five straight, “You want to play these types of games. We just need to go out and play.”
The Clear Lake-Kelseyville winners advances to the Division 7 championship game the weekend of Nov. 25-26. In other first-round action Friday, No. 5 McKinleyville upset No. 4 Willits 9-0. McKinleyville plays the winner of a Saturday game between No. 1 seed St. Vincent and No. 8 Hoopa in the other semifinal game next week.
Game notes: Ollenberger finished with 136 yards rushing on 19 carries and had two catches for 22 yards … Cody Hayes finished with three catches for 71 yards. Soderquist went 8-for-13 for 137 yards and three TDs while scattering those eight completions among five players … Cloverdale actually outgained Clear Lake 397-390 … The Eagles committed 104 yards in penalties and had the game’s only turnover, a lost fumble that really didn’t mean much since it came on a fourth-down play the Clear Lake defense stopped well short of the first-down marker … Clear Lake and Kelseyville are the last two county football teams standing after both Middletown and Upper Lake lost on Friday.
