Santa Rosa bids for a CIF playoff berth in Friday's game

Tim Marlow fights for extra yardage against a CMI defender in Friday night's game.

Story and photos by Joe Quinn, Correspondent

Santa Rosa Academy could earn a berth in the CIF Southern Section football playoffs with a win Friday night at Temecula Prep.

The Rangers’ overall record after last Friday’s 34-14 nonleague loss to California Military Institute is just 3-6, but all three wins have come in league play. SRA takes a 3-2 league record into Friday’s 7 p.m. game against Temecula Prep, which is also 3-2 in league play. The CIF playoffs begin next week.

Friday night’s game ended as it began, with both teams playing well and even. But in between, it was the Rough Riders of Cal Military Institute who dominated.

CMI enjoyed a wild second quarter, closing out the half up 34-0. Santa Rosa played a strong fourth quarter, scoring TD’s on a run by Tim Marlow and a pass from Adam Pinard to Isaac Felix. But of course it is a game of four quarters and the final was in favor of CMI.

The first quarter was played very tight by both teams. The Rangers were able to move the ball on the ground and held the soon to be explosive Rough Rider offense intact, including a nice open-field sack by Roman Womber. But the second quarter was all CMI as their quarterback and fleet skill position players found ways to evade big losses and make explosive long gains on the ground and in the air.

CMI went into the half up 28-0 would expand on that early in the third quarter. It wasn’t until late in the third that Santa Rosa found a way to slow the CMI offense while moving their own. Given the deficit, most of the second half showed the Rangers trying to make up the large scoring gap by going to long downfield passing.

On at least two occasions, passes from sophomore quarterback Pinard were in the hands of the receivers but fell incomplete. In the fourth quarter the Rangers reversed that and several long gains were made through the air. One of them was down the left sideline to Marlow, putting them in position for their first TD, a Pinard pass to Felix on the right side. That play closed the gap to 34-6 as they opened the fourth quarter.

With the Rangers staying in the air, a long Pinard pass to Felix was dropped when the ground caused it to dislodge as he hit it hard. Another even longer connection to Marlow was called back on a penalty. At this point it seemed as if that would be it for the Rangers. However, two successive passes Pinard to Felix and another to Justin York got them a first down at the CMI 20.

This was followed by an 8-yard gain on the ground by Titus Ortiz and the Rangers were threatening at the CMI 8. But once again the Rangers found themselves with 4th and "must".

Pinard dove for the first down and the Rangers were threatening. From there, Marlow took it in over the right side and the conversion, reminiscent of the “Bush Push”, was good and the game was now at 34-14 with 1:52 left on the clock.

From there it was routine and the game ended with the Rough Riders taking a knee at midfield.

Santa Rosa Academy's Roman Wobler (99) and other defenders close in on a CMI ballcarrier.