Eagles close out league campaign vs. St. Helena on Friday
The Eagles suffered a crushing blow to their NCL-1 title aspirations on Friday, coming out on the short end of a 20-14 heartbreaker to visiting Fort Bragg.
The loss dropped the Eagles into second place in the league standings at 4-2 and 6-3 overall, one game back of both Fort Bragg and St. Helena.
Cloverdale will wrap up the league campaign this Friday, Nov. 7 when they host St. Helena in a critical match-up with both title and playoff implications.
The Saints (5-1, 8-1) are coming in with a full head of steam following a 46-6 romp over Willits last week.
“St. Helena has probably the best team on paper,” CHS head coach Rick Berry said. “They’re very fast and are very well coached. It’s our last home game of the season and we’ll be playing the role as spoilers, so I know our kids will be ready to play.”
Also looming on the horizon for the Eagles is a likely berth in the NCS Divsision-5 playoffs, which start next week. The NCS committee meets on Nov. 9 to fill out the brackets.
Slow start proves costly
The Halloween clash with visiting Fort Bragg was high school football at its best, with the spoils going to the winner of a hard-nosed, muddy trench battle.
The Eagles got off to a slow start in the first quarter, spotting the Wolverines a pair of touchdowns that included a two-yard run from Brett Jacomella and a 36-yard pass from quarterback Kaylor Sullivan to receiver Austin Trujillo for a 13-0 Fort Bragg lead.
Cloverdale got things rolling in the second period, as fullback Mason Meier broke loose on a 58-yard touchdown dash to cut the deficit to 13-6. The Wolverines finished off a strong half with another four-yard scoring pass to take a 20-6 lead into the break.
The Eagle’s defensive unit began to impose its will in the third quarter, throttling the Wolverine’s running game to shift momentum back to the home sideline.
Cloverdale quarterback Greg Scaramella got his team back in the game with a scoring march culminating in an eight-yard touchdown on a screen pass to running back Luke Bernardi. Scaramella found receiver John McMillan with a toss for the two-point conversion to make it a 20-14 ballgame at the end of three.
The fourth quarter would prove frustrating for a determined Eagle’s squad, with two drives into the Fort Bragg red zone going unrewarded as the Wolverines hung on for a 20-14 win.
Scaramella finished up with five completions on 18 pass attempts for 33 yards and a touchdown. Other standout offensive efforts were turned in by Luke Bernardi (20-130 yards rushing, receiving TD), Meier (7-89 yards rushing, TD, 1-24 yards receiving), McMillan (2-15 yards receiving), and Luis Guiterrez (2-8 yards receiving).
Leading tacklers included Damon McKinney (12, FR), Luke Bernardi (9), Adrian Bernardi (8), John Janey (5), Guiterrez (4), Jose Calvio (4), Michael Nicholson (3), Scaramella (3), Meier (3), Nick Scalabrini (2, FR), McMillan (2), Travis Kitowski (2), and Adrian Gonzalez (2).
