Vintage stays unbeaten after throttling Bethel and spreading out the wealth on offense

By Kyle Foster, photo courtesy of Eric Thompson (shamboozled.com) 

kfost91197@gmail.com

Twitter/X: @NapaSportsNews @NapaKyle 

Sharing the ball and spreading the wealth is nice for everyone. But on top of that, it’s hard to prepare for everyone with a number to touch the rock. 

On Friday night at Memorial Stadium in a non-league contest, Vintage shared the ball all night and rolled past Bethel-Vallejo, 54-0. 

They quickly jumped out to a 16-0 lead after moving the ball down the field with ease. The beneficiary on the first two scores was Blake Porter, who scored both touchdowns from 6 yards out on a quarterback power right up the middle. These scores came with 9:36 and 4:05 to play in the first quarter. 

“I mean, it’s just about who deserves what right,” Leach said of sharing the scoring and touches all night. “These guys, they work their butts off. They show up every morning at 6:45, we lift, they go to chalk, they go to film, they handle their nutrition. So I just want to, I just want to make sure that reward the people that put that time in, and that’s what I do.”

Then, with a minute left in the first quarter, Vintage kicker Henry Drozdowicz nailed a long 45-yard field goal. This kick would’ve been good from close to 50 yards out. 

From there, the offense continued to churn. With 9:35 to go till halftime, Grant Huss scored on a 1-yard run. 

With 4:31 remaining till half, Sawyer Carmichael found the end zone on a 1-yard run to the outside.  This made it 33-0. 

There were just 3.3 ticks left till the break, Hunter Weis scored on a 3-yard run to give the Crushers a 40-0 lead. 

The entire second half of the game was running clock. At the 4:25 mark of the third, Jaxon Keener scored on a 5-yard run. 

The Crushers scored for the final time in the game on a Cooper Weis 15-yard run with 8:20 left in the game. 

However, the one offensive player who stood out in the contest was Sean Butler. The junior carried the ball just 3 times for 49 yards. But every time he got the ball, it felt like you were watching someone like De’Von Achane or Tyreek Hill, who has the speed to outrun anyone on the field. This makes sense because he was part of the Crushers’ 4 X 100 relay team last spring as well. 

His third and final carry went for 24 yards and moved the chains on a key 3rd down and 19 early in the contest. The crazier thing about Butler is the fact that he hasn’t touched the ball before this season.

“He’s a guy that’s never touched the ball before, until this year,” Leach explained. “A great asset to have. He’s a good kid, man, and I just love the way that he just fights for every yard. He doesn’t go down easy.  There’s a few times on that first run that we thought he was down and out, and he just kept running and got an extra like 10 (yards).” 

Beyond the offense, this was a game that also showcased the defense. In the first half, this game got so lopsided that Vintage had run 34 offensive plays and held Bethel to just 34 yards of offense. 

The main strategy on defense they used was to keep Bethel quarterback Kylan McNeal under pressure and running all night. 

“Yeah, we just wanted to make sure we had a grip on seven,” Leach emphasized. “Seven is a great player for them. I told him after the game, I wish him the best. I hope he gets a chance to play at the next level. But we knew right away that that’s the guy we had to play and stop. And every time they’ve had great yardage and great plays throughout their three films, we’ve seen him on was him pulling the ball in read option and taking off. So thats’s who we aim to stop, and we figure if we stop that, we’d be pretty much success.” 

With the win, Vintage had made it to its bye week unbeaten. They will be back in action in two week’s time in Big Game 54. 

“Absolutely everything Big Game is everything to me,” Leach said of the matchup out of the bye. “It’s my favorite game. It’s the game that I work 365 days a year. I can’t wait to get an opportunity to coach those guys against that team and against those coaches. It means the world to me.”