Cougars crush Sacramento 49-6 | Sports
When the 2022 football schedule was announced, the Cougars knew they would have a lot of common opponents. Teams like Las Lomas, Pleasant Valley and Vanden High Schools are teams the Cougars have gotten used to playing. But one team stood out for those who are into college recruiting, studying high school players and their prospects; that team was Sacramento High School for one sole reason, Lamar Radcliffe.
The 6’2” 230-pound super junior with offers from almost every Pac 12 school gave fans of Rancho Football Najee Harris flashbacks. Harris, the former Antioch, Alabama and now NFL running back, was a name everyone in the state of California knew about. The Cougars got to see up close and personal how special Harris was. For the new school fans, seeing a player like Radcliffe would have been just as good. Seeing a kid who very well might go professional is something you don’t see very often; however, due to an ACL injury, Radcliffe is out for the season and the Cougars didn’t get to face him. Though that took away some of the steam from a fan’s perspective, the Cougars still delivered a scintillating performance.
The Cougars won 49-6, only losing their shutout on the final play of the game, once all the starters had been pulled. It would have been nice to see the Cougars finish off the shutout, but Head Coach Gehrig Hotaling was happy, nonetheless. His team did what they set out to do and he got to do something that every coach dreams of being able to play everyone on the roster.
“It would have been nice to get the shutout, but it shows there’s work to do,” Hotaling said. “I love being able to play everybody, it’s my favorite thing as a coach. I almost teared up a little when Stephanie came in and hearing the whole student section cheer, that’s why I do this.”
The performance was by far the team’s best all-around game. Defensively, the Cougars were locked in and did a good job adjusting to the Dragons’ speed. The Dragons, even without Radcliffe, are a big, fast, and physical team, so the defense really had to adjust.
“Our defense played their best all-around game today,” Hotaling said. “We did a good job taking away their speed. Once our guys adjusted to it and changed up their angles slightly, I feel like we did a solid job.”
Offensively, it was another great performance from everyone. While two weeks ago against Redwood it was the wide receiving core that took over, this game was the running backs and offensive line. The combination of juniors Tupotu Hale and Geovanny Ortiz was lethal, behind a big and improving offensive line. Hale rushed for 68 yards on 7 carries, while Ortiz racked up 72 yards on just 5 carries. Both also had touchdown runs. In all, the Cougars had 227 yards rushing on 27 carries. Having this type of performance on the ground after throwing for nearly 400 yards against Redwood shows that this offense is the best in the North Bay by a wide margin. It’s going to be a challenge to stop this team from scoring 30 every week.
“This was a big game for our offensive line and running backs,” Hotaling said. “We came out the first drive after half and said we’re going to run the ball every play; we’ve got to toughen up on the offensive line. The boys responded to the challenge, and it went really well. It was a rough first half, but they got it together in the second half.”
Because of this all-around performance, the Cougars’ student section got to see something they’ve wanted the whole season up until this point. They wanted to see Stephanie Romo have an opportunity to play.
Girls on high school teams is something that isn’t common, but also isn’t unheard of. Most of the girls who have been on the team are kickers, in positions where they don’t risk injuries. Romo’s position is the offensive line, which is a hard nose position. She certainly gave the fans a show making a couple nice blocks on the Cougars’ final drive. She joined a lot of the other younger players who saw their first action on the season. Being able to play every single player on the roster is something every coach loves to do, and it was clear Hotaling enjoyed giving the players an opportunity and to please a student section who started chanting “We want Stephanie.”
On the defensive side of the ball there were quite a few standout performers. The defensive line, led by Malik Cleveland, Kyle Berry, and Sean Sage, were tremendous dealing with a big Dragons’ front. Cleveland had 5 tackles and 2 sacks, while Sage had 4 tackles and a sack. Linebackers Adam Raines and Jacob Pruitt were great once again. Raines had 10 tackles and did a great job meeting the Dragons’ running back in the hole, while Pruitt continued to fly around like a blur making tackles, sacks, and disrupting plays.
“Jacob is really thriving,” Hotaling said. “Maybe it was bad coaching last year; we couldn’t find a spot for him. We put him at outside backer, and everyone knows about his speed, which he’s using to his full advantage.”
Raines had 10 tackles, Charlie Carrancho had 9 tackles, while Pruitt made plays from sideline to sideline. Great day for the linebackers as well as the secondary. Hale, Sailasa Vadrawale, Dylan Gagnon and Ananias Walker all were tremendous for the Cougars.
Walker, in particular, had one of his better games as a Cougar, on both sides of the ball. Walker had 52 yards receiving and a touchdown which included multiple stiff arms and an end zone sprint. Then he had an interception on defense while covering up his side of the field. His continued growth will be crucial for the Cougars going forward since he has the potential to be such an explosive two-way player.
“I feel like I played good, but could have done better,” Walker said. “Overall, I’m happy with my performance even though there’s a couple things I could have done better.”
It’s clear watching Walker he’s had exceptional growth since he started in the program as a freshman. As a freshman he only played cornerback, so he was still raw as a wide receiver. Now that he’s getting bigger, faster, and stronger, his natural instincts are starting to kick in on both sides of the ball. A big part of his development can be attributed to Vadrawale, whose kind of taken on a mentorship role with Walker.
“Sai’s done so much for me,” Walker said. “He’s like my brother, he’s got me to where I need to be. I look up to him.”
As for his stiff-arm play, it was kind of natural instinct ye could say.
“I was running, and I saw a guy, so I put my arm out,” Walker said. “Then I saw another guy, put my arm out and just took it to the house.”
Walker isn’t the only player who has taken a big leap with both more playing time and just physically getting stronger. The same can be said for the Cougars’ two running backs Tupotu Hale and Geovanny Ortiz.
Hale was the primary backup to Ryan Kane last year and flashed his speed, quickness, and overall running ability. This year he’s the main running back but has a great lieutenant in Ortiz.
Ortiz is in his third year on varsity, but his journey to where he is now hasn’t always been smooth. Between the Covid year and other factors, Ortiz found himself up and down between varsity and JV. But now he has settled into a nice role as the change of pace speed demon.