Vintage gets passing game going in victory over Justin-Siena in Homecoming game
By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (Shamboozled.com)
Twitter: @NapaKyle @NapaSportsNews
Don’t look now, but the Vintage football team is starting to heat up as the playoffs draw near. They were able to keep their winning ways going by beating Justin-Siena 34-7 on homecoming night.
Oddly enough, the Crushers have actually been getting hot due to a more balanced offense that has made them not as easy to defend. A large reason for this is the recent development of play-action to keep the defense guessing.
After all, Justin-Siena head coach Tyler Streblow said it had his team caught off-guard early on.
“Being at a small school, we have to sub on and off,” he said. “So we don’t have a guy who can play on the line of scrimmage in the box. So we got kind of caught there on that first touchdown in the wrong substitution package.”
Throwing the ball a tad bit more was an opportunity that presented itself with a lighter schedule going forward.
“It’s not like we haven’t tried before,” Leach explained. “It was just opportunities. We missed Adam (Drazdowicz) on a crossing route. That would’ve been another one. We threw the ball 12 times against Petaluma and we had open receivers all over the place. We just missed them. So we’re trying to get to the point where we can hit those guys. We feel our passing game is something that surprises people right off the play-action and stuff. So it’s just opportunities and we took them.”
The Crushers (4-4 overall, 3-1 Vine Valley Athletic League) opened the game by recovering the opening kickoff in plus territory and punching it in a few minutes later when Alvarez found Jacob Fiene for a 21-yard touchdown connection with 10:01 left in the first quarter.
In the second, Vintage was able to get the ground attack going when Jefferey Page broke a 41-yard scamper to give the Crushers a 14-0 edge with 9:12 left till half. Page carried the ball 8 times for 100 yards in the contest.
With just 4:02 left before the break, Alvarez was able to throw his second touchdown pass of the night, this time finding Carson McCaffrey for an 8-yard connection to take a 20-0 lead.
“I think he’s getting better,” Leach said of Alvarez’s growth to this point. “We went over some field study after Petaluma, we realized that his feet were doing a little bit something different than what he’s normally been doing. We corrected his feet and that’s helped him tremendously.”
Alvarez finished off his nice game with a rushing score from 9 yards away with 1:40 left till half that was his third total touchdown of the game and gave Vintage a 27-0 halftime lead. Alvarez finished the night with 8 carries for 25 yards.
The Crushers’ final score of the game came with just 5.1 ticks left in the third when Treven Cullinane plunged into the end zone from a yard out to give Vintage a 34-0 lead.
The Braves (5-3, 2-2 VVAL) finally got the offense going a bit in the fourth after being stymied the first three quarters of the contest. The lone score came when Drew Sangiacomo hucked a deep ball to Josiyah Maddalone for a 38-yard scoring connection with 4:33 left in the game. Sangiacomo also found Maddalone for 35 yards later on in the quarter.
“It’s tough when they know you’re going to pass it, and they’re coming at you,” Streblow pointed out. “Drew’s a sophomore, he was going through his progressions. He was doing an amazing job. He was a little banged up there. He fought through it, he made some really great throws there at the end, and a lot of positives to take from his performance.”
Maddalone ended the game as the Braves leading receiver by bringing in four catches for 102 yards. Meanwhile, Sangiacomo completed 12 of 26 passes for 161 yards, a touchdown, and was intercepted twice.
Despite the score, the Justin-Siena defense was battling all night long. The first-year Braves head coach said the score could’ve been much worse, but his defense battled and kept the score respectable. In the first quarter, they were able to force a three-and-out following the sudden change touchdown. What caught the Braves off-guard a bit was the play-action game that opened everything up.
“Our defense is amazing,” Streblow explained. “The guys just play so hard. You know, we don’t have a ton of size but they just fight. They fight, and coach (Spencer) Joske is doing an amazing job. We’re a defensive team this year.”
Vintage will continue its quest for at least a share of the VVAL crown next Friday night when they visit Sonoma Valley. As for Justin-Siena, they will have their much-needed bye week next before hosting American Canyon on October 28th.
In other VVAL games Friday night, Casa Grande beat Napa 68-27 and Petaluma beat Sonoma Valley 42-0.
