MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – By a score of 42-0, the Clear Lake Cardinals of Lakeport fell victim to a decisively superior Middletown Mustangs football team in Middletown’s homecoming Friday night.
Amid pageantry that included a parade of floats, flag presentations by horses in full gallop and military personnel, and the crowning of the homecoming king and queen, the Mustangs ran up the score early in the game, leading 28-0 at the end of the first quarter.
“We just seem to be wrapping up the game in the first quarter in our last three games,” Middletown’s head coach Bill Foltmer said after the win.
The Mustangs have won their last four games, three of them shutouts.
Scoring highlights of the first quarter included a two-yard scamper by Jereomy Hoefer after a botched Cardinal punt attempt on their opening possession, a 32-yard dash by Middletown running back David Pike and a 15-yard screen from quarterback Kyle Brown to wide receiver Connor Chick, all resulting in touchdowns for the Mustangs.
Due to injuries and other factors, Clear Lake head coach Schad Schweitzer said his team was using their third string quarterback for most of the game against Middletown.
“We knew what we were up against,” Schweitzer said after the loss. “Today, Goliath won. David didn’t win.”
The Mustangs continued to dominate in the second quarter, when Pike took a handoff from Brown in Middletown’s opening drive and ran it six yards into the Cardinals' end zone for his second touchdown of the game.
After Danny Cardenas made his fifth extra point of the evening, Middletown held a commanding 35-0 lead going into halftime.
Foltmer noted Clear Lake had “a key lineman that was hurt” and due to injuries and other factors the Cardinals were “not the same team as they were earlier this year.”
The Mustangs scored quickly to open up the third quarter, capped by a 57-yard run by David Pike that broadened their lead to 42-0.
The Cardinals' only threat of the game came late in the fourth quarter, when they took 10 plays to drive the ball from their own seven-yard line to Middletown’s two-yard line.
Clear Lake’s Tyler Beets nearly scored on a 46-yard run, but with seconds to go, the Cardinals failed to convert on a first-and-goal opportunity from Middletown’s four-yard line and time ran out.
“The team didn’t quit,” Schweitzer said of his Cardinals, calling this game “something to build off of.”
Middletown quarterback Kyle Brown completed eight of 12 passes against Clear Lake for a total of 158 yards, and the Mustangs ran the ball 20 times for 264 yards rushing and 422 yards total offense against the Cardinals.
Looking ahead to Middletown’s Oct. 22 match against Ft. Bragg (5-0), Foltmer said, “We have a tough game coming up.”
He added, “the (North Central 1 – North) league is going to be a little bit tougher.”
The Clear Lake Cardinals host the Cloverdale Eagles (0-5) in Lakeport next Friday, Oct. 15, while the Mustangs travel to St. Helena (1-4) to take on the Saints.
In JV action, the Cardinals were more competitive, but still lost to Middletown 35-22.
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