PREP FOOTBALL 2016: Area teams hope road is sweeter than home

After experiencing sour home games last week, area high school football teams seek sweetness on the road as the regular season reaches the halfway point.

Casa Grande, Petaluma and St. Vincent were all soundly beaten on their home turf last week. Friday, all three travel in search of league success.

Casa Grande faces its fourth straight highly ranked opponent when it plays at Rancho Cotate. Petaluma takes on a familiar nemesis in Sonoma and St. Vincent’s Mustangs gallop into Middletown to face that community’s Mustangs.

All three games are Friday night, with junior varsities kicking off at 5 p.m. and varsities starting at 7:30 p.m.

NBL never easy

Life in the North Bay League is never easy. After an arduous 1-2 pre-league start, Casa Grande opened North Bay League play last week against defending league champion and this season’s title favorite Cardinal Newman. The Gauchos are now 1-3. Enough said.

Now, Casa must face Rancho Cotate’s Cougars, the team most predict will battle Newman for the league championship. Rancho Cotate is a deceiving 2-2 for the season, but its losses have been 63-46 in a wild game against Sonoma County League champion Analy and 41-33 to offensive powerhouse Antioch. Last week, in their NBL opener, the Cougars destroyed Montgomery, 63-21.

Once again, Casa Grande will be faced with a deadly pass-catch combination. This time it is Rancho Cotate quarterback Jake Simmons and his favorite target, wide receiver Jalen Ward. In four games, Simmons has completed 85 of 141 pass attempts for 1,340 yards and 18 touchdowns. Thirty-six of his passes have been caught by Ward for 571 yards and six touchdowns.

Senior Peyton Whetstone is the workhorse ball carrier with 419 yards on 59 carries, an average of 7.2 yards per carry.

Early season scores indicate that the Cougars can be scored on, encouraging news for the Gauchos, whose own offense has shown steady improvement.

Although they scored just one touchdown last week against Cardinal Newman, the Gauchos did rush for an impressive 226 yards. The emergence of Sawyer Johnson as a breakaway threat should take some of the pressure off workhorse Spencer Torkelson. Johnson rushed for 118 yards against the Cardinals while marked man Torkelson still gained 75.

Although the Gauchos were unable to pass against Cardinal Newman (few teams have), senior Frank Gawronski has shown an ability to move the team through the air in previous games. For the season, he is 35 of 65 for 641 yards and four touchdowns.

Will it rain?

It seems like every time Petaluma plays football in Sonoma it rains. That’s not likely to happen Friday night, but stranger things have happened to the Trojans in Sonoma.

Rain, snow or a fine autumn night, the Trojans will have their hands full recording their first win of the season.

Sonoma Valley’s Dragons are 2-2 for the season, with its wins coming over El Camino from San Francisco, 9-6, and a winless Elsie Allen, 38-8. Petaluma has struggled through a pre-league season loaded with big, fast and physical teams and got no break in its Sonoma County League opener. While Sonoma Valley was scoring more than one touchdown for the first time in its league-opening win over Elsie Allen, the Trojans were battling for survival in a 55-7 loss to Analy.

Petaluma handled Sonoma, 51-13, last season, but that game was played in Petaluma. It is another game when Petaluma plays at Sonoma. The last time the Trojans were at Arnold Field, in 2014, they were beaten, 13-5.

Despite their 0-4 record and tough times against Analy, the Trojans have continued to show an ability to run the football behind a number of different backs. Latest to grab the spotlight was Dominic Christobal, who had two 20-plus-yard runs against Analy, and now leads the team with 250 rushing yards. Jacob Rollstin has carried for 203 yards and fullback Connor Richardson has gained 141 yards and scored four touchdowns, all on 1-yard runs.

Mustangs vs. Mustangs

The St. Vincent Mustangs renew their long-standing rivalry with Middletown’s Mustangs, but now it counts in the North Central League I standings.

St. Vincent (1-3 on the season) is still seeking its first win in its new league, while Middletown hosts with a 2-2 record, with both wins coming against league opponents.

Middletown, after losing its first two games (both non-league contests), has beaten Kelseyville, 40-8, and Lower Lake, 22-8, to start NCL I play.

St. Vincent, despite its record, has showed flashes of a potent offense. Senior Michael Davis rushed for 270 yards and had 401 total yards in St. Vincent’s season-opening 43-18 win over Elsie Allen and last week in a loss to St. Helena caught six passes for a school-record 229 yards. In four games this season, he has rushed for 327 yards and three touchdowns and caught 17 passes from sophomore brother Will for 443 yards and six touchdowns.