{"id":1324,"date":"2024-10-28T22:59:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-28T22:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=1324"},"modified":"2024-10-28T22:59:17","modified_gmt":"2024-10-28T22:59:17","slug":"lower-lake-upsets-willits-reaches-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=1324","title":{"rendered":"Lower Lake upsets Willits, reaches finals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Varsity Trojans youth squad draws Middletown in championship game<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lake County Sports on Facebook<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>CLOVERDALE &gt;&gt; The No. 3-seeded Lower Lake Trojans upset No. 2 seed Willits 14-12 on Saturday in the varsity semifinals of the Mendo-Lake Empire Junior Football League playoffs at Cloverdale High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The win puts Lower Lake (7-2) into the varsity championship game Saturday against undefeated Middletown (9-0), a 6-0 winner over Northshore in the other semifinals played Saturday in Sonoma. The finals take place at Upper Lake High School with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lower Lake lost to Willits 42-7 in the opening week of the regular season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis has been an incredible year for us,\u201d Lower Lake head coach Mark Garner said. \u201cOur players and coaches have done such a good job all year. They have worked their butts off all year to get to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An interception by Damien John set up Lower Lake\u2019s first touchdown, Ryder Steffen hauling in a pass and Ismael Orozco converting the conversion kick for an 8-0 Trojans lead, which was the halftime score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Willits closed to 8-6 by the end of the third quarter. Lower Lake added to its lead early in the fourth quarter on a Roy Percoats run. Willits answered with a score of its own but came up short on the conversion, leaving the Trojans in front 14-12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a final Willits drive ended on downs, the Trojans were able to kneel on the ball to run out the clock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Michael Garner also intercepted a pass for Lower Lake. He finished with three solo tackles as did John.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe defensive line did a great job of putting pressure on Willits all night,\u201d Garner said. \u201cOur defense really played well this week.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Garner also praised the play of his offense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe offense battled hard all game,\u201d Garner said. \u201cOur line did great and our backs and receivers fought hard all night. It was a great team effort.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Varsity Trojans youth squad draws Middletown in championship game Lake County Sports on Facebook CLOVERDALE &gt;&gt; The No. 3-seeded Lower Lake Trojans upset No. 2 seed Willits 14-12 on Saturday in the varsity semifinals of the Mendo-Lake Empire Junior Football League playoffs at Cloverdale High School. The win puts Lower Lake (7-2) into the varsity [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,36],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1325,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1324\/revisions\/1325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}