There are times where you know you are covering a team that is good but not necessarily great. You watch that team win a particular game. The process of the win won’t make you forget say the 1975 Pittsburgh Steelers, 1984 San Francisco 49ers, 1985 Chicago Bears, etc.
You watch the game and the outcome does not appear signed, sealed and delivered until late in the contest. After the game, however, you feel like it is a solid road victory because it is a two hour drive that feels like three hours where you go “to” the game. On the way home, however, the two-hour drive feels more like 45 minutes because you saw the team you cover win. Well, in this case it was a bus ride since as a sports reporter for the Weekly Calistogan, I rode to Potter Valley to witness the Calistoga High football team’s 34-15 win over the Bear Cubs.
Setting the stage: With three games remaining on the schedule, Calistoga needed a win to keep its CIF North coast Section Class B playoff hopes alive. Like most teams that finish with a 6-4 record, the Wildcats had their peaks and valleys. One week earlier, Calistoga blasted an inferior Round Valley (Covelo) Mustang team 40-0 at home.
The game marked homecoming for Potter Valley. Calistoga was in Mike Ervin Part I. Ervin, who is a 1962 Calistoga High graduate, took over the previous season after the program was on the verge of being disbanded because of numbers and disciplinary issues among other things. Ervin prompted took a talented but flawed team to the CIF North Coast Section Class B playoffs in his first season.
Thumbnail sketch of the game: Calistoga High football players might not have been alive when Olivia Newton-John produced the song “Let’s Get Physical,” but one would have thought that was their purpose in the second half of the crucial win over the Bearcats on a chilly Friday night.
The crowd thinned out noticeably as the Wildcats turned a 14-7 halftime lead into a 34-15 triumph.
Bryant Rubio finished the game with 25 carries for 132 yards, scored both of the Wildcats’ first-half touchdowns and added an interception and a fumble recovery on defense in the second half.
Rubio scored from 1 and 2 yards out in the second quarter. Rubio’s second score — which came just 38.6 seconds before the half — was set up by quarterback Raymond Fechter’s 49-yard pass to B.J. Schlieder over the middle.
Fechter, as has been his custom throughout the 2007 season, had an efficient passing night in completing 9-of-11 aerials for 201 yards and a touchdown, a 12-yarder to Granville Fox in the second half.
Jesus Cachu (seven carries, 68 yards; two catches, 45 yards) added a 5-yard TD run and Jose Luis Alfaro booted field goals of 21 and 23 yards to round out the second-half scoring.Fox had three catches for 84 yards, while Schlieder added three grabs for 74 yards.
Defensively, Schlieder posted a pair of sacks and a tackle for lost yardage, while Alfaro, Fox, Leo Sanchez, Fabian Juarez, John White and Victor Maldonado also recorded stuffs for the Wildcats.
Potter Valley gained 110 yards in the first half before the Wildcats tightened the screws defensively in the second half in permitting just 38 yards. The lone second-half score for Potter Valley in the second half came on the defensive side.
What it meant: The Wildcats kept their playoff hopes afloat on to lose the following week against Point Arena, 36-14. Calistoga applied for an at-large bid only to be denied, despite a 6-4 record. The problem was forfeit wins, one against Laytonville and another against Round Valley.
No comments:
Post a Comment