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Clear Lake's
Geno Blow (20) dives into the end zone past flying La Porte
defenders. -- Citizen photo by Kar Hlava |
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Lake special teams collapse as La Porte rallies in fourth quarter
While Clear Lake prepares to visit Stallworth Stadium in Baytown on
Friday to take on Lee's Ganders, and hopefully the missed
assignments in the special teams have been plugged after last week's
stunning loss to La Porte.
It wasn't that the Falcons lost 35-34 to the Bulldogs as much as it
was HOW Clear Lake lost that game. It was a shocker that stunned the
District Stadium faithful.
Lake held a seemingly safe 34-14 lead three minutes into the fourth
quarter when La Porte rallied, thanks to Falcon miscues.
With Lake driving for another score, the Bulldogs recovered a fumble
at their own 20 and drove 80 yards in ten plays. With 8:24 showing
on the fourth period clock Dometrick Davis went four yards for a
score. The extra-point kick narrowed Lake's lead to 34-21.
Then La Porte's defense held Lake on the next two series. The
Bulldogs added insult to injury when they blocked both punts as
Lake's specialty team didn't failed on assignments.
Both blocks resulted in La Porte touchdowns. With 6:39 remaining, a
25-yard pass from quarterback Chris Anagnostou to Travis Sandel and
the ensuing PAT made it 34-28.
The second blocked punt resulted in a one-yard plunge by Anagnostou.
Aaron Brinkley's kick put the Bulldogs ahead to stay 35-34 with 4:24
remaining in the fourth.
On Lake's next series, quarterback Jonathan Gilmer was intercepted
and the Bulldogs ran out the clock.
La Porte appeared to be out of it as Clear Lake rushed all over the
place the first three periods. The Falcons still wound up with 265
yards on the ground (to La Porte's 188). Lake also did something
rarely seen in these parts-score on a fairly long pass (33 yards)
from Gilmer to Vincent Brooks that gave the Falcons a 28-14 halftime
lead.
But Anagnostou, who had some good completions in the first three
periods, got a lot of help from his defense and specialty teams,
which recovered two fumbles, picked off a pass, blocked a Lake field
goal attempt, an extra point attempt and those two punts.
That's not to say that Clear Lake's defense didn't do a good job.
The Falcons recovered three La Porte fumbles and an interception.
Unfortunately, that happened in the first half.
When Ronnie Feaster went seven yards four minutes into the second
half to give the Falcons that 34-14 lead, it didn't seem to matter
that the extra point was blocked. But it would turn out huge.
The game began as a horse race.
It took La Porte only three plays to score less than a minute into
the game when Quentin Castillo broke through the defense and ran 55
yards. After the kick it was 7-0.
It only took Clear Lake 20 seconds to score after that. Taking over
on their own 21, four plays later Gilmer scampered the final 33
yards to make it 7-7.
Lake took advantage of Bulldog fumbles to keep them from the end
zone. Geno Blow then went four yards to score. After the kick Lake
led 14-7 with 5:58 left in the second quarter.
Brooks scored his first TD on a post pattern from 35 yards to make
it 21-7.
La Porte narrowed that to 21-14 with two minutes left before
halftime as Anagnostou found Dustin Kompf from 23 yards to narrow
the gap to 21-14.
But the Falcons then scored 90 seconds later as Brooks snared
Gilmer's toss at the 10-yard line, fought off a defender and ran
into the end zone for a 33-yard touchdown.
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