SomerSets over Hawks, 54-35
Eduardo Covarrubias Running through blocks by Justin Monfils and Luke Saenz
Somerset Bulldogs tore some feathers off the Canyon Lake Hawks in a route of special proportions.
‘Special’, since the loss can be attributed to Special Teams failures and Penalties.
“We told them last week that we were lucky to win that game,” Head Coach Charley Drum said. “Costly penalties and we lost the turnover battle.”
“We need to get more intensity with our special teams,” Offensive Coordinator Levi Montgomery said. “We will show them what they did wrong and get it fixed.”
Take away the third quarter and your Hawks would of won by one point. However the rules still state for a game to be official the third quarter must be played.
“We did anything we wanted to do offensively,” Coach Drum beat. “Everything we did tonight is correctible.”
For the second game in a row, Canyon Lake’s special teams are becoming special for their opponents as Somerset started the second half with a kickoff return for a touchdown, a repeat from last week.
Add to that a pooch kick that was not fielded on Somerset’s next kick and nine plays later another score. In what seemed liked a close game after halftime, ballooned to 33-21 lead for the Bulldogs in four minutes.
Last weeks penalties creeped back into the Hawk’s game plan and on their very next play Canyon Lake had a 72 yard touchdown pass called back by a holding penalty.
“A lot of errors and penalties,” Quarterback Belcher chimed. “On both sides with the offense, defense, and special teams….just killed us.”
The Hawks could not keep their momentum and had a punt travel 10 yards and Somerset was looking at 59 yards for another chance to score. Which they did in eight plays with one play that had another 15 yard penalty helping a five yard gain become 20 yards giving the Bulldogs a first down on CL’s 17 yard line.
Three plays later what was once a slim one point lead at halftime, had Canyon Lake looking at a 40-21score and 19 point deficit.
The Hawks defensive line was having a hard time getting to quarterback Koy Detmer for Somerset.
“Pop up and quick passes,” Defensive end Trevor Duty said. “He (Detmer) was pretty good for a sophomore, we just have to get nasty and read our keys.”
Canyon Lake fumbled on their next set of downs and Somerset returned that miscue 25 yards to the Hawks17 yard line. The Hawks held this time and Somerset set up for a field goal try, but a costly penalty allowed another first down, this time on the eight yard line and you can guess what happened next. Touchdown!
Somer(not finished yet)set scored again to start the fourth quarter and a 47-21 score. The Bulldogs had scored 27
Senior Receiver Daniel Camarillo
unanswered points and the game plan changed to ‘don’t get anyone hurt’.
Canyon Lake moved the ball all night long but with costly penalties and turnovers, this game had the defense defending a short field and it became tough to stop that momentum.
Branson Belcher had 74 yards rushing, which is an all time best from the quarterback position. Belcher had runs of 36, 32 and 24 yards in the game.
“We do want him (Belcher) to make plays with his feet,” Coach Levi Montgomery said.
Stats were in CLs favor as the offense racked up 433 yards, with 324 of those yards via the ground game. Kudos to the offensive line and another 100 yard game by Eduardo Covarrubias.
“We blocked pretty well tonight,” Guard Weston Dicks said pointedly. “A few blocks on pass protection we missed, but for the most part our offensive line was solid.”
Daniel Camarillo had another long pass play, this one covered 70 yards and the spark was a nice change of pace.
Canyon Lake was successful on their onside kick, but could not take advantage and went backwards 16 yards, helping Somerset with a short field. Result? Five play 38 yard drive for their final score as the SomerSet was starting to glow.
Conner Drum and Doug Hubnik making the Tackle
The Hawks still would not quit and running back Casey Coffee ran right up the middle for 56 yards and the final score for the night. Coffee was untouched and outran the defense for a consolation score.
Defensively, Canyon Lake held their second opponent under 300 yards of offense. It was the first time that the defense has held two consecutive opponents under that number.
“We got to keep working on simple basics,” Defensive Coordinator Cody Means said. “We have to fight back and I think we fought well tonight.”
“The linebackers were lining up way to close to the ball and we did not have back side protection,” Junior linebacker McGuire Johnson said astutely. “We need to get our heads up and get better on special teams. When things get down we lost our mojo. We will come back next week and we will have a revival.”
List of ‘Dirty’ Laundry:
1. Returned kick-off to start second half.
2. Onside kick was successful on pooch kick.
3. Two unforced fumbles that were lost.
4. 32 yard punt return setting the Bulldogs up on CL’s 29 yard line.
5. Holding penalty on a 72 yard pass play.
6. Penalty on field goal attempt, giving Somerset first down and eventual score.
“We made plenty of mistakes,” Running back Casey Coffee said. “We shot ourself in the foot and we need to clean up our mistakes. We had a lot of brain farts and we can fix that in practice with lots of repetition.”
Offensive drives for Somerset: Result 1. Bulldogs 25 yard line TD 2. Bulldogs 24 yard line Punt 3. Bulldogs 39 yard line Fumble 4. CLHawk 29 yard line TD 5. CLHawk 31 yard line TD 6. CLHawk 37 yard line TD 7. Bulldogs 41 yard line TD 8. CLHawk 17 yard line TD 9. CLHawk 38 yard line TD 10. Bulldogs 32 yard line End of game
Game 1 2 3 4 Final Somerset 6 14 20 14 54 Canyon Lake 14 7 0 14 35 Scoring: CLH-Eduardo Covarrubias 29 yard run (Jake Robinson kick), 7:14, 1st SHS-Donaldo Perez 1 yard run (pat failed), 1:30, 1st CLH-Covarrubias 26 yard run (Robinson kick), 0:22, 1st CLH-Daniel Camarillo 14 yard pass from Belcher (Robinson kick), 8:07, 2nd SHS-Reyna 29 yard pass from Detmer (Kalka pass from Detmer), 5:06, 2nd SHS-Perez 12 yard run (pat blocked), 1:56, 2nd SHS-Modesto Martinez 90 yard kickoff return (pass failed), 11:49, 3rd SHS-Detmer 1 yard run (Gonzales kick), 7:42, 3rd SHS-Cody Riojas 1 yard run (Gonzales kick), 1:54, 3rd SHS-Guerra 9 yard pass from Detmer (Gonzales kick), 11:54, 4th CLH-Daniel Camarillo 70 yard pass from Belcher (Robinson kick), 10:38, 4th SHS-Perez 1 yard run (Gonzales kick), 6:42, 4th CLH-Casey Coffee 56 yard run (Robinson kick), 5:28, 4th
Team Stats Bulldogs Hawks Total Yards 293 433 First Downs 18 17 Rushes/Yards 35/134 35/324 Comp/Att/Int 13/19/0 4/14/0 Passing Yards 159 109 Punts/Ave 1/38.0 2/23.5 Fumbles/Lost 1/1 2/2 Penalties-Yards 3-15 7-64 TOP 26:47 21:13
Passing Comp Att Yds Pct TD Int Branson Belcher 4 14 109 .29 2 0
Rushing Att Yds Ave Lg TD Eduardo Covarrubias 21 141 6.7 29 2 Casey Coffee 4 83 20.8 56 1 Branson Belcher 8 74 9.3 36 0 Daniel Camarillo 1 25 25.0 25 0 Matt Riffe 1 1 1.0 1 0
Receiving No Yds Ave Lg TD Daniel Camarillo 2 84 42.0 70 2 Doug Hubnik 2 25 12.5 14 0
Matt Riffe blocking for Covarrubias
Isaiah Gutierrez returning kick
- Isaac Pruna jumping to Block Extra Point
