Crushers line play, Schaumkel leads to win over American Canyon
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
It was a heavyweight fight on Friday night at Napa Memorial Stadium. After landing a plethora of body blows it was the Crushers came away victorious by a score of 27-14.
The tone of the game was set by the Crushers (5-2, 3-0 Vine Valley Athletic League) offensive and defensive line play, which has been imperative to their success so far this season.
On offense Vintage was constantly getting to the second level, while on defense they were forcefully changing the line of scrimmage.
“Yeah, but hey give them credit they came back and played very tough up front. We were facing a ten man box, and I don’t care, right, it’s like ‘let’s see who we are’ and they played up to a high level and they should be proud for how tough the guys played,” Vintage coach Dylan Leach said of how the Wolves (3-5, 3-1 VVAL) performed in the trenches before giving his group some credit. “But yeah you’re right we were physical up front, we were discipline, and we got it done early and it kinda helped us throughout the ball game.
The person who benefited most from the stellar line play was Viliami Schaumkel. The senior accounted for all of the Crushers offensive touchdowns on rushes of two, four, and fourteen yards before ending the night carrying the ball a total of 21 times for 108 yards.
“Man it feels good because I’m also in there doing the dirty work, but credit all to the line they do all of the dirty work for us hands down,” said Schaumkel.
Early on in the game Vintage lost it’s do-it-all, swiss army knife type of player Michael Webber to what appeared to be an ankle injury that forced Leach to swap up his game plan that was based around Webber. As a result of the Webber injury Leach focused his new, on-the-fly game plan around Schaumkel.
“The game plan was set around Michael Webber and once Michael went down early obviously you’ve got to change some plans, so we went to Yami, but I think Michael will be alright,” Leach explained of the usage of Schaumkel. “But I mean our whole game plan was set around him, so when he goes down you’ve got to figure out more things to do and Yami was the guy that took over.”
The Wolves, who were down 13-0 at the half, came out as a different team in the second half and with three minutes left in the contest only trailed by six before a Jacob Bittner 27-yard interception and touchdown return.
“We always talk about resilience, the kids showed it. That’s kind of what we talked about in there (postgame huddle) at the end of the game,” American Canyon coach John Montante said of his team’s second half comeback. “At halftime they had every reason to walk away and say ‘next week’, they didn’t. They looked at each other and they fought for each other and they played a good half; I’m proud of them.”
American Canyon had both their scores come in the fourth quarter. First, with 7:58 left, Vance Eschenburg scored on two-yard rush. Later, Eschenburg connected with Antonio Perez for a 32-yard touchdown. The Wolves missed the two-point conversion opportunity on their first score, but on the second attempt Eddie Byrdsong converted the try.
Winning this game could go a long way to the Crushers not only winning the inaugural VVAL title, but also towards landing a top seed in the CIF North Coast Section division one playoffs.
“We want to play at home. Vintage hasn’t played at home since 2005 in the playoffs and we haven’t won a playoff game since 1986, so we want to be at home during the playoffs and that’s always a goal,” Leach said of the importance of the win. “We’ve got to win out to do it, so three important games coming up.”
Next week Vintage will technically be on the road at Justin-Siena even though the schools are only a mile away from each other. As for American Canyon they’ll have their bye week before visiting Casa Grande on October 19th.
“I think it’s going to be fun playing all the rivalries in our county and just showing them what team is the best and who runs this town,” Schaumkel explained of all the games with teams in Napa County, which includes next week’s contest with Justin-Siena.
Vintage JV 50 American Canyon 6
The Vintage JV continued to show their dominance so far this season with a route of American Canyon on Friday.
Bill Chaidez, Ian Avalos, and Dylan Smith led the Crushers (7-0, 3-0 VVAL) to the win.
Next week the Crusher take on Justin-Siena at 4:45 at Dodd Stadium.
