Clear Lake jumps out to early 14-0 lead during Thursday night game at St. Helena
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ST. HELENA >> What appeared to be an upset in the making in the first half crumbled into the bitter reality that is the 2024 high school football season for the Clear Lake Cardinals, who ended up falling 42-21 to the St. Helena Saints in North Central League I varsity football action Thursday night at St. Helena.
“We played a really good first half,” Clear Lake head coach Mark Cory said of the 21-13 lead the Cardinals (1-4 league, 1-6 overall) held at halftime. “Then the wheels fell off. It was a tough second half.”
St. Helena (4-1, 4-3) scored 29 unanswered points over the final two quarters while winning a fourth straight game.
“It was tough to watch,” Cory said of the final two quarters.
Clear Lake had a two-touchdown lead less than six minutes into the game. The Cardinals went up 7-0 on a 41-yard touchdown pass from quarterback AJ Bruch to Ty Bingham. After recovering a St. Helena fumble, Zane McAuley scored on a 30-yard run, Nolan Ewing kicking the extra point, to make it 14-0.
St. Helena began to fight back at that point, scoring late in the first quarter to cut the lead to 14-6.
One of the key plays of the game followed early in the second quarter.
“We were driving again and fumbled a screen pass,” Cory said.
St. Helena scooped up the loose ball and returned it 60 yards for a touchdown. The extra-point kick narrowed the Cardinals’ lead to 14-13.
Clear Lake pushed its lead to 21-13 on a McAuley 1-yard run before halftime. McAuley, a junior running back, had a huge first half with 132 yards, but he could only add three yards to that total in the second half as the St. Helena defense clamped down.
“McAuley had a tremendous first half,” Cory said. “We were pretty much running whatever we wanted to run.”
It didn’t take long for the Saints to pull even in the second half as they scored and added the two-point conversion to tie things up at 21-all. They went ahead 28-21 at the 4-minute mark before adding a pair of insurance scores in the fourth quarter.
“We still haven’t put together four good quarters of football,” Cory said. “We’ve had games where we’ve played well at the start, others where we’ve played well in the second half, but not four straight quarters.”
Bruch complete 10 of 30 passes for 100 yards, one touchdown and one interception. Bingham had three catches for 41 yards and a TD.
Clear Lake return home Friday, Oct. 25 to play Willits.
St. Helena won the junior varsity game 13-7.
