Mustangs go to air to dominate Upper Lake

St. Vincent High School’s varsity football team rode the accurate right arm of Dominic Pedersen to a one-sided 54-0 victory over Upper Lake’s over-matched Cougars before a delighted home crowd on a perfect fall Saturday afternoon.

Pedersen was 12 of 20 for the game for 207 yards and three touchdowns. Eleven of his attempts and eight of his completions came in the first quarter when the Mustangs jumped out to a 21-0 lead and just kept running.

“We knew we wouldn’t throw much after the first quarter, and we wanted to work on our passing,” said St. Vincent coach Gary Galloway. “Petersen is maturing fast. Our passing game is coming around.”

“I’m getting a better understanding of our offense,” the quarterback noted. “The reads are starting to come easier.”

For a few minutes, it looked like the game might be competitive.

St. Vincent gained just five yards on its first three running plays, then had some trickery backfire when a fake punt was nicely defensed by the aggressive Wildcats.

But, on Calistoga’s first play from scrimmage, the Cougars fumbled possession back to the Mustangs, and the road race started.

Pedersen passed short left. Pederson passed short right, Pedersen passed short left. Pederson passed short right, and suddenly Manny Reyes exploded through a large hole on the left side of the St. Vincent line for 29 yards. Pedersen then passed to Jacob Farinha for a 25-yard touchdown, and the issue was decided with 7:46 still to play in the first quarter.

St. Vincent scored on every other possession in the first half, except for its final ownership when it had only two plays and a kneel before the break.

The point makers were Austin Booth on a 2-yard pass from Pedersen, Pedersen on a 21-yard run, Michael Gross on an impressive 27-yard field goal, Jas Murray on a 22-yard pass interception return, Kyle Dannewitz on a 60-yard pass from Pedersen. That play featured an impressive run after the catch by the receiver, who was guilty of hit and run over Cougar defenders on multiple occasions on his way to the end zone.

St. Vincent stayed primarily ground bound in the second half, giving Reyes a chance to shine with touchdown runs of 30 and 60 yards before the few reserves on St. Vincent’s injury-thinned bench took over completely,

For the game, Reyes ran for 177 yards on just 11 carries.

Farinha closed out the scoring with a 13-yard run.

For the game, St. Vincent totaled 247 yards rushing to go with Pedersen’s 197 passing yards.

Defensively, St. Vincent almost completely shut down the Cougars’ offense, despite gutsy efforts from Upper Lake quarterbacks Jesse Campanero and Mike Diandrea.

Murray had a huge day for the Mustangs with 12 tackles. Senior jacob Dorn was credited with eight tackles and Jordan Pech and Justin Sublik six each as they completely swamped the Upper Lake running game.

To the Cougars’ credit, they played hard until the end, and were still battling to score when time ran out.

In a wild junior varsity game, the St. Vincent and Upper Lake junior varsities battled to a 40-40 tie.

St. Vincent took a 40-36 lead with a touchdown with under three minutes left in the game, only to see Upper Lake drive for a tying touchdown with just 40 seconds left. The Cougars’ try for a two-point winning conversion was stopped, leaving the game tied.