20-12 victory keeps Upper Lake in thick of North Central League I race
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LOWER LAKE >> While announcing the names of honored alumni during its homecoming celebration Friday night against the Upper Lake Cougars, the Lower Lake Trojans made a glaring omission, one that didn’t go unnoticed.
“Class of 1965, Stan Weiper,” Upper Lake’s head coach joked after his Cougars survived a pair of overtimes to spoil Trojans’ said homecoming 20-12 in a North Central League I varsity football classic at Gordon Sadler Field.
Delaney Allison caught a 4-yard pass from quarterback Jerod Rosales in the second overtime to snap a 12-12 tie, and Brody Blancas gave the Trojans an eight-point cushion by adding the two-point run on the conversion.
Starting from the Upper Lake 25-yard line on its second-overtime possession, the Trojans just missed on a fourth-down play, coming up inches short of a first down, at which point the game ended.
When the marathon match was over, Weiper actually got to rejoin his team on the field. He was ejected with eight minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, not for anything he did but for two unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties called against an assistant coach (and the head coach receives the consequences under current rules, which includes missing the following week’s game).
“Never happened to me before,” said Weiper, who has been coaching since the 1970s, of his first ejection.
Weiper not only had to leave the playing field, but he wasn’t allowed to communicate with anyone on the playing field in any way, shape or form.
A bit of a fuss ensued when Weiper was seen on his cellphone outside the playing field, according to Weiper, who said he was only talking to wife Susan to let her know what had happened. When a nearby Lower Lake administrator reminded Weiper of the no-communication rule, Weiper said he flipped the phone to the administrator.
“Talk to my wife if you want,” Weiper said.
Even if Weiper had been talking with is own assistants, the Cougars still had to execute the plays on the field, which they did in the end.
The two teams played scoreless football in the first half before Upper Lake finally broke through for a 6-0 lead in the third quarter on a Rosales-to-Blancas 25-yard pass. It remained a 6-0 game until Zach Jones’ rushing touchdown in the fourth quarter evened the score at 6-all. Both teams misfired on their two-point conversion attempts as neither squad has a placekicker.
Teams start overtime at their opponent’s 25-yard line, and each school gets a chance to score. You have to match your opponent to keep the game going or do better than your opponent to win it. If Team A kicks a field goal, Team B can win it with a touchdown. If you score a touchdown, you have the option of kicking the extra point or going for two.
In the first overtime, Upper Lake scored on an 11-yard Blancas run but missed the two-point conversion pass, making it 12-6. Lower Lake answered with a Zakai Vilmenay touchdown run but also misfired on the two-point conversion.
That set the stage for the second overtime and Allison’s game-winning score, which included a bit of improvisation by Allison and Rosales. Instead of running a glance route, Allison cut back toward the sideline and hauled in Rosales’ pass.
“Getting the two-point conversion (on Blancas’ run) gave us huge leverage,” Weiper said. “Brody just wanted the ball.”
Both teams carried 1-1 league records into the game and the win keeps Upper Lake (2-1 league, 3-2 overall) in the upper half of the league standings, just one game behind 3-0 co-leaders Kelseyville and Willits. The loss was the second straight for Lower Lake (1-2, 3-2) after a 3-0 start to its season.
With the Cloverdale Eagles (0-3, 1-3) coming into Upper Lake next Friday, the Cougars have a good opportunity to make it a 3-1 start in league play even if Weiper won’t be around to see it.
“The kids rallied up,” Weiper said. “I was expecting a higher scoring contest, but we were just out of sync in the first half. We did play excellent defense.”
It wasn’t until Blancas scored on a swing pass in the third quarter that the Cougars’ offense began to show signs of life. A sophomore called up to the varsity earlier this month, Blancas has made a huge impact since, including on Friday night when he rushed a team-best 95 yards, most of that coming in the fourth quarter, and caught three passes for 33 yards, including the touchdown.
“We didn’t have many yards passing, but they were big ones,” Weiper said of Rosales, who went 6-for-12 for 37 yards.
Upper Lake rushed for more than 250 yards. Besides Blancas, Jonathan Barnes had 59 yards, Rosales 52 and Allison 48.
Weiper gave way to junior varsity head coach Duke Faleagalulu once he was ejected and praised him for his efforts leading the team for most of the fourth quarter and through the overtime. He also was proud of his Cougars for hanging tough coming off a 32-28 home loss to St. Helena the previous week.
“After last week we were disappointed, but this one gets us back into the hunt,” Weiper said. “I was really impressed with them, how they hung in there. We should be fired up going into next week.”
Defensive leaders for the Cougars against Lower Lake were Allison with seven tackles and two assists, Barnes, Gage Faalelea and Dylan Aragon, all with five solo tackles, and Nathan Boomer with four solo stops and an assist. Blake Sneed had an interception.
Lower Lake head coach Jay Jakubowski declined comment.
Upper Lake won the junior varsity game 20-6.