DeJohn rushed for 266 yards, two touchdowns as 4-0 Kelseyville beats Upper Lake
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By Brian Sumpter
UPPER LAKE >> Like a puzzle missing some pieces, the Kelseyville Knights aren’t quite complete yet as they weave their way through the North Central League I football maze.
And that could be really bad news for the competition if they can ever get back to anything approaching full strength.
Minus their top two running backs and best wide receiver and losing another running back along the way Friday night, Kelseyville inflicted a 27-6 beatdown of the Upper Lake Cougars that’s even more impressive if you delve inside the numbers.
“I had no illusions that this was going to be easy,” said Upper Lake head coach Stan Weiper as the Cougars (3-2 league, 4-3 overall) came up short in their bid to hand the Knights (4-0, 5-1) their first league loss.
“We competed, tried hard, we’re just not there yet,” Weiper said of a mostly young Upper Lake lineup that didn’t do much after taking a 6-0 lead on its third offensive play of the game, quarterback Jerod Rosales hooking up with wide receiver Antario Wyman for a 92-yard touchdown at the 4:03 mark of the first quarter.
The Cougars took over on downs at their own 8-yard line after Kelseyville opened the game with a time-consuming 13-play drive that covered 69 yards all the way to the Upper Lake 3. The Knights had a first-and-goal from there but couldn’t punch it into the end zone, eventually losing control on downs when a fourth-and-goal pass from quarterback Brock Barrick fell incomplete in the back of the end zone.
While the Knights would remain without any points until the second quarter the proverbial writing was on the wall for both teams.
The reason?
Kelseyville might be without running back Kyle Watkins (600 yards, 12 TDs), who missed his second straight game with an injury, and Reme Strong, who is Barrick’s favorite target when in the lineup, and the Knights have been minus running back Max Hommer since a Week One broken collar bone sidelined him for the season, but they’re not without big and physical offense and defensive lines, lines that dictated pretty much everything that went on Friday night.
Junior running back Michael DeJohn took full advantage, carrying the ball 30 times for 266 yards. To say he was the beneficiary of some huge holes opened by his linemen would be an understatement.
“We’re banged up, but our line is not banged up,” said assistant coach Logan Barrick, who was filling in for head coach Leo Flores (on vacation). “We believe we have six of the biggest, strongest linemen in this league.”
Combine that with a 6-foot, 185-pound running back in DeJohn, and you’ve got something. DeJohn had 10 carries for 10 or more yards, topped by a 57-yard touchdown midway through the fourth quarter that made it 27-6, and four other 9-yard runs. He was usually four or five yards deep in the Upper Lake defense before the Cougars could even get a clean shot at him.
“That’s what I was afraid of,” Weiper said of going up against Kelseyville’s offensive line. “We needed a couple of breaks to beat these guys, and we didn’t get them.”
As dominant as the play of the Kelseyville offensive line was, the Knights defense, including the line, didn’t allow Upper Lake much of anything after the long touchdown pass from Rosales to Wyman, who got behind a Kelseyville cornerback and ran underneath Rosales’ deep pass, hauling it in and sprinting untouched down the Upper Lake sideline and into the end zone.
Upper Lake finished the game with five first downs – all of them coming in the first half – and had only one yard of offense in the second half. After scoring in the first quarter, the Knights never advanced deeper than the Kelseyville 22 the rest of the game.
“We really couldn’t do much against them,” Weiper said.
“We set goals every week,” Barrick said. “One of them tonight was don’t allow any big plays. Well, they got us almost right away with a big play, but we didn’t let them have anything else the rest of the night. We had some new guys in there playing positions (because of injuries) and they did a pretty good job overall. A lot of new guys stepped up.”
Most of Kelseyville’s possessions, even when Upper Lake managed to stop them, used up a lot of time on the clock and kept the field position advantage squarely in the Knights’ favor.
Kelseyville pushed ahead to stay with 7:12 left in the first half on a 78-yard drive that ended with Brock Barrick’s 28-yard pass to a wide-open Michael Dougherty. Two plays earlier Barrick (12-for-21, 132 yards) hooked up on a 20-yard gain to the Upper Lake 31. Jose Juarez converted the extra-point kick to snap a 6-6 tie.
Upper Lake got as far as the Kelseyville 30 before turning the ball over on downs with a little more than four minutes remaining before halftime. Kelseyville covered the 70 yards to the end zone on six running plays and two pass completions, Barrick capping the drive with a 3-yard keeper with 1:19 left. Juarez again added the extra-point for a 14-6 lead.
The Cougars did a good job staying within a score for most of the third quarter, but Kelseyville was on the march again by quarter’s end, moving from its own 39 to the Upper Lake 12. DeJohn’s 2-yard run on a fourth-and-two play gave the Knights a first-and-10 from the 12 as the clock ran out.
As the fourth quarter opened, Barrick’s 9-yard run moved the ball to the 3, setting up DeJohn’s first touchdown run of the game for a 20-6 lead.
Kelseyville had the ball back moments later after forcing a three-and-out, and the Knights needed only five plays to go 77 yards, DeJohn busting up the middle on fourth-and-one and racing 57 yards for the score.
DeJohn had three catches for 43 yards, giving him more than 300 yards of total offense.
While the Knights have an abundance of good linemen, they also have great depth up front, according to Barrick, who said only Jayden Teabo and Adam Astrup start on both the offensive and defensive lines.
Kelseyville still has some tough challenges ahead as it pursues the league title, and one of the biggest is a game next Friday against Willits, which takes place at Don Owens Stadium in Lakeport. The winner will move into sole possession of first place as the only remaining undefeated team.
“Before each season we circle certain games on our schedule,” Barrick said. “We had five circled this season. Middletown (won 24-21), Upper Lake, Willits, St. Helena and Clear Lake.”
The Cougars will get back to the business of reaching the win column next Friday at home against Fort Bragg (2-2, 3-3), according to Weiper.
“We’ve got our work cut out for us,” Weiper said. “Fort Bragg is a good team and we’re going to have to play well to beat them.”
A victory over the Timberwolves would guarantee the Cougars of no worse than a .500 record this season, which would make them playoff eligible.
Game notes: When Weiper said the Cougars needed a “couple of breaks” to hang with the Knights, a team he coached in two separate successful stints, he was referring to turnovers, and Kelseyville didn’t cough the ball up once all game despite putting it on the ground twice in the first half. The second fumble eluded a handful of Upper Lake players late in the second quarter deep in Kelseyville territory with the Cougars up 6-0 at the time. “Maybe if we had gotten that, we could have pushed another one in (for a touchdown). “We also missed (converting) a couple of fourth downs that would have helped in the first half.” One of those was a fourth-and-four play from the Kelseyville 33 that came up just shy of the necessary yardage on a Brody Blancas run … Kelseyville got a little thinner at running back early in the game when sophomore Bryce Kenner left for the sidelines with a hamstring pull. Barrick said he didn’t know when Watkins or Strong would return to the lineup … The Knights elevated two junior varsity players to the varsity for the game, Hugh O’Boyle, a freshman, and Nick Arredondo, a sophomore. Arredondo caught a 16-yard pass on Kelseyville’s second play of the game. He finished with two catches for 23 yards … While the Knights were never in any real danger of losing Friday, Upper Lake certainly has improved from a year ago when it again began playing 11-man football, the first time since the 2014 season. Last year’s final was 57-0 Kelseyville.
