Late CMI touchdown knocks off Santa Rosa Academy
Santa Rosa Academy defender Nick Welty stops a CMI ballcarrier and forces a fumble. Story and photos by Joe Quinn California Military In...
Story and photos by Joe Quinn
California Military Institute scored with less than three minutes left in the game and held on for a 12-7 victory over visiting the Santa Rosa Academy football team Friday night.
Both teams started out slowly, perhaps held back by penalty calls against both sides. Whatever the reason, the first quarter passed quickly and with little gains to show for either team.
The second quarter saw no change until the Santa Rosa Rangers, with possession at midfield, moved quickly downfield to a third-and-goal at the Rough Rider 6. From there, an Adam Pinard short pass in the flank to Daniel Marlow produced the first score of the afternoon. Marlow was hit hard at the 1-yard mark but forced his way in as he fell over the goal line. Sydney Geske’s conversion was good and the teams went into the half with the Rangers up 7-0.
That was all the scoring until the 5:35 mark of the fourth quarter, when CMI’s John Castelan broke loose from his own 28 and after frustrating several tacklers went untouched from there for the first Rough Rider TD. The conversion failed and the one-point lead by Santa Rosa looked good, given only five minutes were left in the game.
However, CMI did get the ball back quickly and moved to a fourth down at the Ranger 7-yard line. The attempted field goal, although it had the distance, was wide right and once again the Santa Rosa lead stood up.
But it was not to be as Santa Rosa, on its next series, fumbled the ball to the Rough Riders at their own 30. Again, Castelan rose to the occasion and with less than three minutes left in the game scored on another nice run. The two-point conversion attempt failed and the Rangers were now down, 12-7.
Despite quick gains by Santa Rosa, including a nice run by Jeremiah Park to the CMI 30, the drive stalled and the Rangers turned it over on downs. The Roughriders took a knee as time ran out.
The CMI home crowd was into the game the whole afternoon and that support showed on the field. For Santa Rosa, Marlow, Park and last week’s Ranger TD hero, Tyler Baxter, made significant gains over the course of the game.
The Rangers are now at 4-4 and 2-3 in the South Valley League. CMI, although 3-5 overallm improved to 3-2 in the South Valley.
