Football starts all over again

So far, Petaluma and Tomales, with 3-1 records, have had good football seasons. Casa Grande and St. Vincent have skipped bad and gone straight to ugly with winless marks.

That being written - forget it. Everybody now starts over with the beginning of league play. The giddiness of their big starts for Petaluma and Tomales and the disappointment of winless beginnings for Casa Grande and St. Vincent now mean little in comparison to what the players have learned and how much they have improved over the course of the pre-league season.

On this week’s first round of counting games, Casa Grande plays at Rancho Cotate and Petaluma is at Sonoma Valley Friday night. Both Tomales and St. Vincent draw byes, giving them a chance to heal hurts and fix problems as they prepare for the start of the round-robin North Central League II schedule the following weekend.

Gauchos vs. Cougars

The game between Casa Grande and Rancho Cotate in Rohnert Park pits two teams with perhaps the most deceptive records in the Redwood Empire. Casa Grande is 0-3, but every one of its losses have come to a defending league champion with teams that are believed to be even stronger than the champions of the year before.

The Gauchos have lost to Analy from the Sonoma County League, 47-14; Napa from the Monticello Empire League, 31-0; and Franklin from the Delta Valley Conference, 43-3.

Rancho Cotate has had little trouble scoring all season, but in its first two games could not stop either Alhambra (47-35 loss) nor Vanden (33-8 loss). Last week the Cougars put things together on both sides of the football, beating American Canyon, 56-22.

Casa Grande isn’t sure if it will have to face Rancho Cotate No. 1 quarterback Gunner Meffered or not. The junior is one of the best passing-running quarterbacks in the Redwood Empire, but he suffered a concussion in the Vanden game and sat out last week’s win over American Canyon. Senior Cooper Nicks stepped in last week, and led the Cougars to their first win, completing eight of 13 passes for 62 yards and two touchdowns and running for another 64 yards.

No matter who is throwing, the Gaucho secondary, vulnerable at times this season, is going to have to contend with super Rancho receiver Chris Taylor-Yamanoha, who caught both of Nicks’ touchdown throws last week, and is rated one of the best receivers in the Redwood Empire.

On the ground, the Cougars’ mainstay is senior running back Carlos Franco, a 5-foot, 10-inch, 185-pound speedster who broke a 50-yard touchdown run last week.

It is on the defensive side of the football that Rancho Cotate has been having problems, and the Gauchos are hoping this is the week they turn their offensive potential into offensive reality.

With an experienced offensive line that averages better than 250 pounds a player, Casa Grande had hoped to be able to drive down field, but thus far most of its drives have been hampered by penalties and turnovers. Leading ball carrier has been sophomore Spencer Torkelson who has 87 yards on 21 carries. Another sophomore, Max Cerini, has 63 yards on 13 carries.

Junior JJ Anderson has had some success through the air, completing 22 of 40 passes for 282 yards to seven different receivers. What has been missing against some of the area’s top defenses has been the big play that marked last season’s NBL championship team.

Defensively, despite the point totals of their opponents in the first three games, the Gauchos have played well in spurts, led by linebacker Casey Longaker, who is having an All-Empire caliber season. The problem has been that the Gauchos haven’t been able to get their opponents’ offenses off the field, too often giving up crucial first downs on third and fourth-down plays.

Linebacker Ryan Lowe, Kevin Donohue, coming up from the secondary, and down lineman Julian Lopez have also been in the forefront of the Casa Grande defense.

Varsity kickoff is 7:30 p.m., following the 5 p.m. junior varsity game.

Trojans vs. Dragons

If past performances are any indication of future developments, the North Bay’s drought will end around 7:30 p.m. Friday when Petaluma’s Trojans step onto Arnold Field to face the Dragons. It seems it always rains in Sonoma when the Trojans come calling, it is only a matter of degree.

Rain or shiver, Petaluma will be trying to build a league title run on the foundation of an impressive pre-league season that finished with a 3-1 record, culminating with a 42-7 win over Jefferson in Daly City last week.

Sonoma is a contrasting 0-3 after losing to Galena from Reno, 26-21; San Marin, 54-13 and Fremont, 20-0.

Petaluma coach Rick Krist says the Dragon record is deceiving. “They are going to be a good challenge for us,” he says. “They are a much better team than their record shows.

“They have moved the ball well at times, but turnovers have hurt them. They move the ball, but haven’t been able to finish drives.”

Junior Willie Lennon seems to have won the Sonoma quarterbacking job and early on has been playing well, completing 50 percent of his passes, but the Dragons, as they do traditionally, do most of their ball moving on the ground, with senior Tristan Mertens the primary ball carrier. He played both running back and wide receiver last season and is dangerous both as a rusher and a pass catcher.

Petaluma, meanwhile, has the rare luxury of depth, both up front and in the backfield and both on offense and defense.

So far this season, nine different Trojans have carried the football, led by fullback Yusef Kawasami who has 276 yards on 36 carries, averaging 7.7 yards per carry.

He leads the team with three rushing touchdowns.

Quarterback Brendan White, in addition to being a running threat in the Trojan triple-option attack, has also given Petaluma a passing dimension.

In four games he has completed eight of 29 passes, but for 162 yards, and, impressively, five touchdowns.

Three of those touchdowns have been to Harrison Royall, who has scored on three of the four passes he has caught.

The last two meetings between the two rivals have been decided by a field goal, with Sonoma winning, 17-14 in 2012 and Petaluma winning last year, 24-21, on a closing-seconds Greg Thomas field goal.