CLOVERDALE — A championship call led to a championship finish for the Clear Lake Cardinals on Friday night in Cloverdale.
Trailing 21-7 in the first half after the Cloverdale Eagles scored 21 points in the span of a few minutes, Clear Lake rallied to win 22-21 when the Cardinals followed a touchdown with 3:24 left in the game with a successful two-point conversion pass from quarterback Jake Soderquist to tight end Cody Hayes. The victory clinches the outright North Central League I title for the Cardinals (6-1 league, 9-1 overall), their first league crown since 2007.
"It really hasn't sunk in yet," Clear Lake head coach Mark Cory said of winning the league title. "And we're not done yet. We want to continue to ride this wave."
Clear Lake will now wait until Sunday's North Coast Section at-large and seeding meeting to find our where it has been seeded in the Division 7 field — most likely second or third. First-round games begin next weekend.
"I'm happy for the seniors," Cory said. "It was a hard-fought game. The last two weeks have been playoff football for us. There is no easy pass in this whole thing."
Clear Lake was coming off a 15-14 overtime loss at Willits, a game during which the Wolverines gambled on a two-point conversion — that was successful — in overtime to hand the Cardinals their one and only loss of the season to date. Clear Lake's touchdown in overtime against Willits was the same play the team used Friday night on its winning two-point conversion against Cloverdale.
"That play had been good to us," Cory said. "We used it earlier in the game and Jake had a run of like 18 yards."
The multi-option play allows the quarterback to throw the ball, roll out and run with it or pitch it to a running back.
Soderquist ran for all three of Clear Lake's touchdowns against Cloverdale as the Cardinals, facing a five-man Eagles secondary much of the night, turned to a ground game that didn't let them down. Running back Hank Ollenberger finished with 118 yards on 21 carries while Soderquist added another 62 yards on five carries.
"They were giving it to us," Cory said of all the running room.
Soderquist's final score, a 2-yard run, cut Cloverdale's lead to 21-20. Clear Lake lined up for an extra-point kick, but Cory called a timeout to discuss the situation with his coaches and players.
"The boys were saying we should go for it (two-point conversion) and I agreed," Cory said.
Hayes was well covered in the end zone but managed to haul in the conversion pass from Soderquist.
Clear Lake opened the scoring on a Soderquist 3-yard run in the first quarter for a 7-0 lead, but the Cardinals wouldn't see the ball again for some time.
"We didn't have the ball very much in the first half," Cory said.
Cloverdale quarterback Mason Caturegli scored the first of his three touchdown runs later in the quarter as the Eagles pulled even at 7-7. That's when things got real, real interesting.
Cloverdale went for an onside kick and recovered it, which led to another Caturegli touchdown and a 14-7 Eagles lead.
"He's a handful," Cory said of Cloverdale's freshman quarterback.
And then the Eagles came right back with another onside kick. They recovered that one as well before Caturegli scored again to make it 21-7.
"Both of those onside kicks were well done. The ball takes true hops on that (artificial) surface," Cory said. "They have a very good kicker and they put the ball in open spots. It was a great job of coaching on their part."
The Cardinals were clearly back on their heels by that point, but they recovered. Soderquist scored on a 28-yard run late in the second quarter as Clear Lake closed to 21-14, which is where the score remaining throughout the third quarter and deep into the final period.
Following the go-ahead touchdown and two-point conversion by the Cardinals, Cloverdale pushed the ball out to midfield with 1:17 remaining, but the Eagles' last hope died in the arms of Ollenberger, who picked off a pass and smartly went to the turf with just seconds remaining.
"He had an open field in front of him, but he took a slide, he's smart," Cory said. "I would have been fine with it had he tried to run it out. He had the whole field in front of him."
Cory credited defensive coordinator Shady Cerezo with making several halftime adjustments that helped shut down Cloverdale's offense in the second half.
Clear Lake had two more prime opportunities to score in the second half but came away with nothing each time. One of those drives ended with an interception deep in Cloverdale territory.
The last two weeks have certainly tested the Cardinals' mettle, according to Cory.
"We haven't made it easy on ourselves," he said. "The cardiac Cardinals are in full bloom."
— Mike Hansen contributed to this report.
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