In a Friday night game played at Santa Rosa High, Analy-Sebastopol (1-0) bolted out to a 27-0 first quarter lead and then held off a no-quit host Casa Grande-Petaluma for a 48-29 victory.
Despite a few shaky moments that included two interceptions, and a couple of sacks that could have been avoided had he gotten rid of the ball, Analy quarterback Jack Newman was very impressive in his first varsity start.
The 6-foot-1 junior was 27-of-42 for 381 yards and four touchdowns of 41, 57, 30 and 5 yards. Newman also had a 5-yard bootleg for a fifth TD with 6:30 remaining that closed out the scoring and pretty much sealed the deal.
“Obviously I was a little nervous, and I made some mistakes, but overall it was good to face a solid team like Casa Grande and get experience overcoming adversity that will help us this season,” Newman said.
Newman played well but he needed a lot of help and senior wide receiver Schuyler Van Weele gave him the most assistance. The 6-foot senior had 11 receptions for 200 yards and three TDs on catches of 41, 57 and 30 yards. Van Weele also had a 95-yard kickoff return for a fourth score and totaled 190 yards on four kick-off returns.
The leading rusher in the game was Analy junior running back Chris Zamora. He had 15 carries for 86 yards that included a 7-yard TD run.
On defense for Analy junior Nick Savage had two interceptions and a sack, and junior Jordan Parks had two sacks and an additional tackle for loss.
“As a team we could have played better but for a first game it was a good win,” Van Weele remarked.
The fact Analy blew a huge early lead was not lost on Analy Coach Dan Bourdon.
“The first quarter we were a well-oiled machine, pedal to the metal. Then we got a little loose. Too many penalties,” Bourdon told the players after the game.
In fact, the Tigers committed 16 penalties for 142 yards.
Casa Grande (0-1) never quit and looked like they might be able to complete the comeback, however after closing to 34-29 on a touchdown pass from quarterback JJ Anderson to Duilio Froes with 9:44 left, they ran out of gas.
Anderson was 17-of-39 for 205 yards and three touchdowns but he had three interceptions and was sacked four times.
“We did get a little complacent but our defense held us in the game,” Newman remarked.
One of the twists on Friday night was the contest was a home game for Casa Grande but because their field is being replaced with artificial turf they will play all home games at either Santa Rosa High or next door at Santa Rosa Junior College.
Analy also is having its field replaced with artificial turf and all its home games will be at Rancho Cotate-Rohnert Park.
A second twist is Analy was always going to have a cork base rather than the controversial crumb rubber that was scheduled to go in as the base for the new turf at Casa Grande, but in a reversal last week the Petaluma School Board voted to change from crumb rubber to cork due to concerns from parents.
Studies are not totally conclusive, but many have found the material made from ground up tires can contain toxic substances.
Cosumnes Oaks blanks Marin Catholic
The second of two games covered by Prep2Prep this weekend in the North Bay saw visiting Cosumnes Oaks (1-0) post a Saturday afternoon 20-0 victory over host Marin Catholic-Kentfield.
The game was scoreless until the final play of the first half when Cosumnes Oaks senior running back Dante Davis scored on a 1-yard plunge to make it 7-0 Wolfpack.
As was the case all game the Cosumnes Oaks 14-play, 91-yard scoring drive included a key third-down conversion. With third-and-20 on its own 26-yard line, a blown coverage by Marin Catholic allowed junior quarterback Austin Greer to find senior Christian McFarland all alone for a 33-yard completion. Seven plays later Davis found paydirt for the only score the Wolfpack would need in the game.
Marin Catholic (0-1) looked good early on but they could not score on any of three first-half drives that stalled on the six, 22 and 14 yard lines. Another drive stalled at the five, but by then there were only seconds remaining.
Davis finished with a very workmanlike 15 carries for 56 yards and the score. Greer, who didn’t start, but came on in the second quarter to replace junior Maurice Hayden after two drives, also had solid but not spectacular numbers. He was 10-of-16 passing for 127 yards and one touchdown on an 11-yard second quarter pass to McFarland. He also rushed for 43 yards.
The final score came on a 5-yard reverse by McFarland that completely fooled Marin Catholic.
Marin Catholic senior quarterback Darius-James Peterson played well, but part of the reason the drives stalled was a real lack of a running attack. The Wildcats had a combined 10 carries for 18 yards in the first half and 27 carries for 81 yards in the game. With a sack and another run for loss the usually run-happy Peterson had 31 yards on only six carries. In the air he was 11-for-23 for 175 yards but 140 of those yards were in the first half.
Marin Catholic Coach Mazi Moayed didn’t mince words.
“The theme of the day is finishing. We need to do a better job of finishing. We didn’t finish on offense and we didn’t finish on third down on defense.”
With a new quarterback and just about all the big numbers graduating except Davis and McFarland, there was speculation this would be a re-building year for a Cosumnes Oaks team that went 10-3 overall and 7-0 in the Capital Valley Conference before losing in the first round of the CIF Sac-Joaquin Section D1 playoffs to cross-town Monterey Trail.
That sentiment was not shared by second-year Coach Derick Milgrim.
“From the time I took over I’ve never thought of it as rebuilding. We lost a lot from last year but I knew what we had. It wasn’t so much rebuilding as building the next floor,” said Milgrim, who is now 2-0 against Marin Catholic after 23-10 home victory last year.
Cosumnes Oaks now has a very tough game against Granite Bay while Marin Catholic has to re-group for another large school when they face Menlo-Atherton next week at home.
