This wasn’t a night to remember.
At least not in the North Bay League, except for one team who might be hiding a little smile on its face this morning.
Six teams from the NBL played and five of them lost.   It is not that they lost, but how they lost.   The closest final was a 12 point game and that was a four touchdown game with three minutes to go.
Don’t feel sorry for the NBL.  Save your pity for those who have to rank them.  Six of the top ten YSN365.com teams lost by an average of 28 points a game.
Shake those out.
One of those top ten lost to the only sure thing.
They lost to a clear cut (at the moment) No. 1.
FRIDAY RESULTS
No. 1 Analy 48 No. 5 Maria Carrillo 7
St. Mary’s 35 No. 2 Cardinal Newman 15
Alhambra 47 No. 3 Rancho Cotate 35
No. 4 Windsor 21 Benicia 7
Salesian 33 No. 6 Middletown 7
Napa 31 No. 7 Casa Grande 0
Vintage 42 No. 9 Petaluma 0
Eureka 49 Ukiah 13
Galena (Reno) 26 Sonoma Valley 21
St. Helena 13 Healdsburg 10
El Molino 28 Lower Lake 6
Tomales 46 Elsie Allen 24
Piner 28  Richmond 7
Clear Lake 15 Durham 13
Willits 34 Hoopa Valley 0
Kelseyville 41 Upper Lake 0
South Fork 8 Calistoga 7

There really isn’t too much you can say about an Analy game these days. They simply jump out to a big early league and get to play everybody in the second half.
That is what happened for the second straight week in a 48-7 win over No. 5 Maria Carrillo.
Analy had a 41-0 lead in the third quarter.  Ja’ Narrick James rushed for 170 yards and ran in three touchdowns and caught a pass for another.
In a 2-0 start Analy has outscored two NBL teams 95-21.   That is only part of the story.  They led 40-0 in Week One and 34-0 in Week two…at the half.
What more can you say?
Windsor saved it from being a complete losing night for the North Bay League teams, with a 21-7 win over Benicia.   The Windsor running game and a big defensive effort was the difference.
After falling behind 7-0 in the first quarter, the Windsor defense didn’t allow another point and intercepted two first half passes in the red zone.
Dmitri Acken rushed for two first half touchdowns on his way to a 104 yard night and quarterback Jalen Roman added 136 yards rushing and scored the final touchdown on a one yard run in the third quarter.  Roman has rushed for over 100 in each of the first games.
Windsor has started 2-0 and has given up 17 points.
The rest of the North Bay League teams weren’t pretty.
It may have been a reality check for Cardinal Newman and sophomore quarterback Jordon Brookshire.   One week after an offensive explosion, they were hammered 35-15 by St. Mary’s of Stockton.
After rushing for over 200 yards in his varsity debut last week, Brookshire was held to three yards rushing in the first half as St. Mary’s jumped out to a 22-0 lead.
Cardinal Newman’s defense couldn’t keep pace with St. Mary’s.  The first series was a deflator as on a 4th and 15, St. Mary’s scored on a 31 yard pass from Noah Rigetti to Javonte Norman.
That gave St. Mary’s some momentum that they never lost until the game was decided.  They scored on their first three possessions and moved the ball the way they wanted.
Running back Marcell Spady scored the next two touchdowns.  The first one was set up on a 45 yard pass played and the second he scored on a 36 yard run.   Spady would score one more touchdown and ended up with 117 yards rushing on 14 carries.
Cardinal Newman avoided the shutout with two fourth quarter touchdowns.
Rancho Cotate is high on its offense.   In the opener they couldn’t keep up with the defense in a 47-35 loss to Alhambra.
The offense matched Alhambra in the first half, but things got out of hand in the third quarter when three straight touchdowns made it a 47-21 game early in the fourth quarter.
Rancho Cotate’s offense was as good as advertised. Junior quarterback Gunner Mefferd threw for 279 yards and three touchdowns.  Junior receiver Chris Taylor-Yamanoha caught eight balls for 134 yards.  Running back Mo Ward also went for 153 yards rushing in a game that both teams had over 400 yards in total offense.
Meanwhile you can’t blame Napa if they are thinking that they wished they were in the North Bay League after taking a one sided win over Casa Grande, 31-0.  Last week they defeated Montgomery 36-7.
Napa put on quite a clinic rushing for over 400 yards, didn’t punt or turn the ball over.  Meanwhile the defense held Casa Grande to under 200 yards in total offense.
Casa Grande wasn’t the only Petaluma school to get shutout by a Napa school.
Petaluma traveled to Napa and dropped to a 42-0 decision to Vintage.
Vintage pulled away from a 7-0 halftime lead.  It was still 14-0 midway through the third quarter, but a blocked punt and an interception set up touchdowns to put the game away as the Trojans drop to 1-1.
There were some close games.   One was in Healdsburg, where the Greyhounds hosted St. Helena, which is starting to be quite a rivalry.  St. Helena took this game 13-10.
Quarterback Jack Preston rushed for both of St. Helena’s touchdowns.   The second ended the first possession of the third quarter on a fourth down two yard run.   That would be the last score of the game.
Healdsburg was given a golden opportunity to win it late.  A mishandled snap on a punt attempt gave them the ball at the St. Helena 30 with three minutes left.  But the Saints defense held.  It was one of two times that Healdsburg had the ball in the red zone in the fourth quarter, but the St. Helena defense held both times.
The Saints stayed in the game in the first half despite not having an answer for running back Chris Pedroni who carried the ball 26 times for 134 yards and scored the Healdsburg touchdown.  He ended the game with 169 yards on 37 carries.
It was St. Helena’s first game of the season.
Healdsburg drops to 0-2.
The best game might have been in Sonoma, although it didn’t end up well for the local team.  Galena of Nevada scored two fourth quarter touchdowns to steal a 26-21 win over Sonoma Valley.   Galena scored the game winner with 5:01 left.
Trista Mertens returned the second half kickoff 65 yards to break a 14-14 halftime tie in what was the season opener for Sonoma Valley.
El Molino is 2-0 after a 28-6 win over Lower Lake.   Steve Mori threw four touchdown passes, including one each in the first and second quarter to take a 14-0 halftime lead.
Tony Martignoli threw two touchdown passes as Piner had a big first half in a 28-7 win over Richmond.  Matignoli hit Dillon Miggons for a 44 yard score to make it 18-0 in the second to help Piner go to 1-1.   Piner was able to get all of its players into the game.
Tomales is 2-0 following a 46-24 win over Elsie Allen.  The only details we have on this game at the moment is Willy Lapori, who rushed for 224 yards last week, got almost half of that on run when he went for 97 yards for a score in the first half.
SATURDAY SCHEDULE
No. 10 Cloverdale (1-0) at St. Vincent (0-1)
Fort Bragg (0-1) vs. Encina (Sacramento) at El Camino (Sacramento)
No. 8 Montgomery, Santa Rosa BYE
JC FOOTBALL
SRJC at San Joaquin Delta
My email address is jacpasquini@comcast.net