Vintage again shows its dominance, cruises past Justin-Siena
By Kyle Foster
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
In sports, there is plenty of instances where a team is flat out better than another team no matter what you do.
That was the case on Friday night when Vintage beat their fellow Trower Avenue rival Justin-Siena 62-0.
“They are the better football team,” Justin-Siena head coach Brandon LaRocco said. “That’s what it comes down to, so kudos to them.”
On the other side, is the Crushers who improved to 5-0 overall on the season and 5-0 in Vine Valley Athletic League play.
The story of the game for the two-time defending league champions was their passing attack, which showed how lethal it can be on two long scoring plays.
The first one came with 6:05 left in the first quarter when Jacob Aaron found Reid McCaffrey for a 41-yard connection. Then with just 18.9 ticks left in the first half, Aaron again got another touchdown through the air. This time, he found Logan Nothmann for a 53-yard score.
“We started slow,” Vintage head coach Dylan Leach admitted. “I honestly thought the emotions got the better of a few of our guys. They were out to prove a point tonight. Obviously, I think we got that point accomplished. But I think in the beginning we were a little bit tight and weren’t really letting the offense come to us but it turned around.”
Turnaround they did. The Crushers also showcased that they are a force on the ground as well. The contest’s first score came with 9:10 remaining in the first quarter when Aaron plunged into the end zone from two yards out. He also had another two-yard touchdown at the 3:06 mark of the second quarter.
Leach also explained that they don’t get enough credit for how well they pass the ball.
“I just feel like our passing game is as good as anyone in the league and it’s just not something we get credit for,” he said. “Because people feel like we just don’t do it. But I feel like we were able to execute on the passing game and I think we wanted to showcase Jacob. We wanted to showcase Jacob tonight.”
Dylan Smith also found paydirt three times on the night. His first score came at the 7:28 mark of the second quarter, which was a 12-yard score. Then, he found the end zone again at the 7-minute mark of the third quarter from 14 yards away. He ended the night with a six-yard score at the 2:40 mark of the third quarter.
The only other scores in the game came on rushes. With 11.7 left in the third quarter, Bill Chaidez received a pitch from Aaron on an option play and scored from 43 yards out. Then, Mo Schaumkel had a 52-yard score with 3:27 left in the game.
“We’ve got a stable of guys and we tried to make it all even for the guys that work hard,” Leach explained.
Vintage was also solid on the defensive side of the ball. They sacked Justin-Siena quarterback Hudson Beers a total of nine times while also only allowing him to complete just five passes on 18 attempts.
“We came in to stop the run,” Leach said. “We just worried about 28 (Roman Topate) all week. That’s all we practiced for was playing against 28. He had a great game last week against St. Vincent (de Paul-Petaluma). So we figured if we could stop 28 that we would be in a good position to play their pass.”
Next week will be finales for both teams. Justin-Siena (3-2 overall, 2-2 VVAL) will head south on Highway 29 to face American Canyon. Meanwhile, Vintage will face Napa in Big Game XLIX (49). Napa leads the all-time Big Game series 29-17-2, but Vintage has won the last three Big Games.
In the fall of 2019, Vintage beat Napa 26-20. Meanwhile, Justin-Siena beat American Canyon 17-10.
Other VVAL games on Friday night saw Napa beat Casa Grande-Petaluma 40-14 at Napa Memorial Stadium. Petaluma beat Sonoma Valley 18-14.
