Trick play helps treat Gauchos to a big win

One big trick led to an even bigger treat for the Casa Grande High School football team on the eve of Halloween.

Casa’s Gauchos shocked Windsor with a 40-yard touchdown pass off a fake punt, and used the play as a catalyst for a 31-14 win on their home turf Friday night.

The win was huge for the Gauchos, who are now 7-1 for the season, and at 3-1 in league still hopeful of gaining a share of the Sonoma County League championship they have owned or shared for the last six straight seasons.

Windsor suffered its first league loss, and is now 6-2 overall and 3-1 in league, leaving both it and Casa a game behind unbeaten Petaluma going into another showdown for the Jaguars next Friday night at home against Petaluma. Casa Grande will try to do its part when it plays at Healdsburg.

The fake punt came with Casa Grande already leading, 14-7, late in the first half. On a fourth-and-nine play, punter Makana Garrigan took a direct snap and pitched to a wide open Allan Vargas, who zipped to the end zone unmolested. Windsor never recovered.

The play was introduced to the Gauchos just this week by offensive coordinator Larry Gondola. Herzog called the trigger on the trickery and Garrigan and Vargas worked it perfectly.

The fake punt was only one of several big plays by the Gauchos. “That is the best we’ve played all season in all aspects,” Herzog said. “We were led by Conner Waggoner. That is the best game he has ever played.”

Waggoner had two sacks and a bundle of tackles on defense, and came up with a single-handed stop of a late Windsor first-half drive by stripping the ball from running back Steven Hutchison and recovering the fumble. Offensively, he caught six passes for 196 yards and a touchdown.

The game featured quite a passing battle between Casa’s Nick Sherry and Windsor’s J.D. King. Sherry completed just seven of 16 passes, but they were good for 215 yards, while King, throwing constantly in the face of a Casa Grande blitz that sacked him five times, still completed 10 of 18 passes, but for only 128 yards.

The only hurt for Casa Grande was to the leg of all-league running back Kahlil Keys, who limped out of the game just before halftime with what turned out to be a lower-leg bruise. He was taken to the hospital for a precautionary examination after the game.

The contest started like anything but Casa domination, as Windsor quickly established ball control, pushing 72 yards in its initial possession for the game’s first score, a 15-yard run by Jimmy Reed on a reverse. The Jaguars used 10 plays and nearly five minutes of clock for the drive.

No sooner had Windsor scored, than Casa answered, going 67 yards in just three plays. Fifty-four of those yards were run off by Waggoner on a pass from Sherry. Keys did the scoring from 24 yards out.

After the tying Gaucho touchdown, Windsor ran off nine more plays before a drive ended inches short of a first down at the Casa Grande 33-yard line. In the first quarter, Windsor ran 19 plays to five for the Gauchos.

Although Windsor had several impressive drives on the chilly evening, it was the Gauchos who did the scoring with quick lightning-like thrusts, usually involving Sherry to Waggoner in some meaningful manner.

A 64-yard Sherry to Waggoner pass connection set up a four-yard scoring run by Keys to up the Gaucho advantage to 13-7.

The fake-punt TD made it 21-7, and Waggoner’s strip and recovery to end a Windsor drive at the Casa Grande 12-yard line made sure it stayed that way at halftime.

The second half was just three plays old when Sherry again slapped a pass to Waggoner, who made King miss his tackle attempt and raced 57 yards for the TD

Sophomore Lucas Weston booted a 23-yard field goal for a 31-7 Gaucho lead.

The complexion of the game changed in the final quarter. With Keys sidelined, Casa Grande called on junior Javonnie Oden to help run minutes off the clock, and he led the Gauchos on a pair of good drives that resulted in no points, but chewed up important minutes.

Windsor, faced with the large deficit, mostly gave up the running game and tried throwing with some big play success from King to Michael Campbell and Reed.

Windsor did culminate a 71-yard drive with a four-yard touchdown run by Hutchison.

However, other drives were short-circuited by a fumble recovery by Brayan Araiza and interceptions by Vargas and Garrigan.