Napa gets its revenge against Justin-Siena thanks to big second half effort
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Don Lex (LuckyDuckImages.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
There are times when the final scene doesn’t reflect how close the game actually was.
That was the case on Friday night when the Napa football team beat their in-town rivals Justin-Siena 42-14.
“We just we executed better and really, we just wore them out,” Napa coach Richie Wessman explained.
“I just think we let the momentum swing away from us,” Justin-Siena coach Brandon LaRocco said. “And then we started seeing bad play after bad play after bad play.”
It was also a bit of a revenge game for the Grizzlies (5-2 overall, 2-1 Vine Valley Athletic League) who lost the annual meeting last season 36-32.
“It feels good,” Napa senior quarterback Isiah Newton said of getting some revenge after last year’s heartbreaking loss. “Putting 42 points on the board is always a good thing. There were a lot of penalties we had that put us back.”
“It feels really good because both teams are kind of talking a little bit,” Napa junior tight end Brock Bowers added. “But we started off slow and we pulled it out.”
In the first half, the Braves (6-2, 2-2 VVAL) were able to keep up with Napa. In fact, they scored first in the game with 6:45 left in the first on a 15-yard touchdown where Hudson Beers found Solomone Anitoni. In order to get down to the red zone, Justin-Siena faked a punt where Beers found Blake Hoban for a 34-yard gain.
However, it didn’t take all that long for the Grizzlies to answer. At the 5:32 mark, Newton found Bowers for an 89-yard touchdown to knot things back up.
Napa went into the half up 14-7 thanks to a Trey Dennis 17-yard touchdown run with 2:57 left in the first half.
Justin-Siena once again started the half strongly when Beers found Miles Williams for a 23-yard touchdown. Beers completed 15 of 22 passes for 265 yards but had three interceptions.
From then on the Grizzlies pulled away. With 7:32 left in the third, Benito Saldivar found the end zone from 10 yards out. Then, Newton had a 12-yard touchdown rush with 1:21 left in the third quarter. Saldivar ended the night with 113 yards on 17 carries.
To begin the fourth quarter Bowers once again found the end zone, but this time it was by way of the rush as he scored from 42 yards out with 11:50 left. Bowers ended the night with 100 yards on two receptions to go along with 75 yards rushing on five carries.
The final score came when Newton again found the end zone, but this time from four yards out. Newton only completed 2 of his 11 passes for 100 yards.
“I feel like we’re trying to do too much like trying to throw the ball a little bit too much,” Bowers said of the second-half turnaround. “But when we stuck to the ground game, I felt like that’s when we really excelled.”
“I feel like since we have the bodies and have people playing one way instead of both ways that’s really the difference here,” Newton pointed out. “ After we came out of the locker room, we try to come out more focused and more energized than we did in the first half. And since they have a lot of people playing both ways, they came out a lot more tired than we did.”
Both teams will be back in action next Friday night at 7 p.m. Napa will hit the road for the first time in two weeks when they visit Casa Grande-Petaluma. As for Justin-Siena, they’ll make a return trip to Memorial Stadium when they visit Vintage.
thanks. good article.
chuck