{"id":897,"date":"2024-09-21T17:31:13","date_gmt":"2024-09-21T17:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=897"},"modified":"2024-09-21T17:31:13","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T17:31:13","slug":"saints-hold-off-cougars-32-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=897","title":{"rendered":"Saints hold off Cougars 32-28"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

St. Helena beats Upper Lake in back-and-forth NCL I battle<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake County Sports on Facebook<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UPPER LAKE >> Upper Lake didn\u2019t come away with the win Friday night at home against the St. Helena Saints, falling 32-28 in a back-and-forth battle, but if the Cougars have proven anything in their first four games season, it\u2019s that they\u2019re back to stay on the 11-man football radar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be competitive, but we just couldn\u2019t finish it off tonight,\u201d Upper Lake head coach Stan Weiper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trailing 32-28 with three minutes remaining, Upper Lake (1-1 league, 2-2 overall) picked up one first down before St. Helena stopped the Cougars on downs. The Saints (1-1 league, 1-3 overall) ran out the clock to secure its first win of the season after coming excruciatingly close a week ago in a 20-14 loss at Willits, and during its first game of the season, a 20-17 overtime loss to down-the-road neighbor Justin-Siena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was upset that we weren\u2019t able to pull off the win, but we had some errors in the secondary, broken coverages, that really hurt us,\u201d Weiper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of those errors was quarterback Troy Taber\u2019s 50-yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Dean Sommer that gave the Saints a 32-22 lead and proved to be the game-winning score. Taber, who played at Middletown last year before transferring to St. Helena in the offseason, completed just 5 of 22 passes, but they were big ones \u2013 for 187 yards overall and two touchdowns, both of them to Sommer (four catches for 135 yards).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, it was a 71-yard pass from Taber to Sommer that opened the scoring as the Saints moved out to a 6-0 lead in the first quarter. Taber also ran for a touchdown in the second quarter to make it 12-8 Saints in the seesaw battle. He was St Helena\u2019s leading rusher with 79 yards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upper Lake held leads of 8-6, 14-12 and 22-20 before the Saints pushed out in front 32-22 on a Sam Beck 5-yard scoring run and Taber\u2019s second touchdown pass to Sommer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cougars closed to 32-28 on the third Delaney Allison touchdown run of the game, this one a 6-yard. Allison, who finished with 107 yards on 23 carries, also scored on a 7-yard in the first quarter after which Brody Blancas added the conversion run to give the Cougars an 8-6 lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Allison\u2019s second touchdown run, a 4-yard run in the second quarter, put the Cougars up 14-12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After St. Helena had gone back in front 20-14 in the third quarter on a 10-yard Beck run, Upper Lake\u2019s Wes Wyman hauled in a 54-yard pass from Jerod Rosales to briefly tie the game before Blancas\u2019 second conversion run made it 22-20 in the Cougars\u2019 favor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosales, a senior, went 10-for-17 for 204 yards and a touchdown. Blancas was his favorite target, catching three passes for 79 yards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upper Lake overcame a bit of adversity in the first quarter to keep the game close.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe lost a player (lineman) in the first quarter after St. Helena scored its touchdown,\u201d Weiper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Upper Lake player was ejected for throwing a punch and could now miss up to three games for his actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While that certainly hurt, Weiper said the breakdown in Upper Lake\u2019s pass coverage was far more injurious to the game\u2019s outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the NCL I you can\u2019t make mistakes and get away with it,\u201d said the veteran Weiper, who is coaching his third NCL I team after stints at Lower Lake and Kelseyville. \u201cWe can\u2019t give up big plays at critical times. We need to do a better job with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were some brights spots for the defense. Mikel Compton had nine unassisted tackles, two assists and an interception while teammate Billy Stillman added six solo stops, two assists and an interception. Nathan Boomer added eight solo stops and Dylan Aragon had seven unassisted tackles and two assists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Upper Lake hits the road next Friday to play Lower Lake (1-1, 3-1), a game both teams need to stay in the upper half of the league standings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In junior varsity action, St. Helena beat Upper Lake 13-8, handing the Cougars (1-1 league, 3-1 overall) their first loss of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Game notes:<\/strong> St. Helena finished with 187 yards passing and 175 rushing \u2026 Former Kelseyville head coach Erick Larsen is in his second season with the Saints just as Weiper is in his second season at Upper Lake. The Saints went 6-5 overall and 4-4 in league, including a 41-8 win over Upper Lake, last season, qualifying for the North Coast Section playoffs. In their first year of 11-man football since 2014, the Cougars went 1-8 last season, including 1-7 in league \u2026 St. Helena heads into a bye week and returns to the field Oct. 4 at Lower Lake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

St. Helena beats Upper Lake in back-and-forth NCL I battle Lake County Sports on Facebook UPPER LAKE >> Upper Lake didn\u2019t come away with the win Friday night at home against the St. Helena Saints, falling 32-28 in a back-and-forth battle, but if the Cougars have proven anything in their first four games season, it\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897"}],"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=897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":898,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897\/revisions\/898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}