Esparto forfeit games late in second quarter because of numerous injuries
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LOWER LAKE >> “Our kids are physical,” Lower Lake High School varsity football head coach Jay Jakubowski said after his team’s season-opening 22-7 win over the Esparto Trojans on Friday night at Gordon Sadler Field.
You won’t get an argument from Esparto (0-1), which forfeited the game with 4:53 remaining in the first half after losing four players to injuries.
“Both of their quarterbacks were hurt, and they lost two linemen,” Jakubowski said. “They only had six linemen to begin with. I think they suited up 16 for the game.”
Such an occurrence isn’t new for Lower Lake (1-0). The Trojans beat Cloverdale in the league opener for both teams a year ago in Cloverdale, the Eagles calling it quits early because of too many injuries.
“I understand how it is,” Jakubowski said. “It’s early in the season and you have to look out for your team because you have a lot of games left to play.”
Numbers were a concern earlier in the week for Jakubowski, who said the flu bug had tapped into his manpower at practices, but the Trojans suited up 24 on Friday night and came away with no injuries in the quarter and a half of football played.
Esparto actually scored first, a long drive staking the team to a 7-0 lead that lasted only until Lower Lake’s next possession.
“Defensively we played really well after that first drive by them,” Jakubowski said. “We made some mistakes on their drive; we had two or three chances to stop it.”
Quarterback Ashton Hartmann’s 25-yard touchdown pass to Jordan Rohrbacker and Anthony Russell’s conversion run put Lower Lake ahead to stay at 8-7.
Lower Lake added to its lead later in the first quarter on a 9-yard Jason Gandeza run and Hartmann’s conversion run to go up 16-7.
Hartmann’s 9-yard pass to Jony Ventura in the second quarter pushed Lower Lake’s lead to 22-7 as the conversion pass failed.
“We won the physicality battle up front,” Jakubowski said of Lower Lake’s offense once it got rolling.
Jakubowski said the Trojans had no shortage of strong performances, including defensive lineman Noel Pereira, Gandeza on both offense and defense, Russell at outside linebacker/safety, Ventura on both sides of the football, Brody Shields, Steven Rich and Daniel Garner.
“I could pretty much go down my lineup, we had so many players do a good job,” Jakubowski said.
Lower Lake’s defense recorded six tackles for losses and had sacks from Rich and Gandeza.
Though individual game statistics weren’t available, Jakubowski said Hartmann, a three-year varsity veteran, had between “80 and 100 yards” and threw the ball well, and that Russell had some nice runs, including 35- and 16-yard gains.
There were no turnovers by either side.
“I’ll take it,” Jakubowski said of the win. “We got out of there with no injuries and we’re going into Healdsburg with all of our guys.”
Lower Lake travels to Recreation Park in Healdsburg next Friday to play the Greyhounds, who are coming off a 35-34 season-opening road loss to Washington. The Greyhounds’ new head coach is Taylor Tappin, the son of former Lower Lake assistant football coach Herm Tappin, who also coached the Trojans’ 1990 softball team to league and section championships.
Lower Lake won the junior varsity game 34-0.
TEAM NOTES: Lower Lake’s junior varsity team plays Thursday at home against Maxwell at 5 p.m. The Lower Lake-Healdsburg game Friday is varsity only with a 7 p.m. kickoff.
