South Lakes Forces 3 Turnovers, Rolls Past Robinson 30-7

By BRIAN McNICOLL

For most of Coach Jason Hescock’s postgame speech Thursday night at South Lakes,, you wouldn’t have guessed that his Seahawks had just delivered a convincing 30-7 victory over Robinson.

You wouldn’t have guessed that the Seahawk defense had forced three turnovers, scored a touchdown on one of them and limited Robinson’s diverse offense to 101 yards and five first downs. You wouldn’t have guessed that the Seahawks ran up 281 yards on the ground, led by 126 from quarterback Christian Wyatt and 124 from running back James Smith.

And you definitely wouldn’t have guessed that, like last week, South Lakes put the game away with a big second quarter and basically coasted home after halftime.

“Our defense was perfect … didn’t give up any points.. The only [Robinson] touchdown was on a special teams play, and that’s on me. And our offense was pretty good too,” Hescock said to his team. “But we have a lot to work on, a lot to tighten up. This is not nearly what we can do.”

The players did not disagree with Hescock’s assessment.

“We came out so flat,” said Nick Picarelli, who caught eight passes for 61 yards and became South Lakes’ all-time leader in receptions with a second-quarter catch. “But we stayed at it and worked our tempo and turned things around.”

Indeed they did.

Turnovers Help Seahawks Take Control Before Halftime

The teams traded punts then traded lost fumbles with South Lakes finally taking over at midfield with 4:40 to go in the first quarter. First came Picarelli’s record-breaking catch for four yards, then a couple of first down runs by Smith to get the ball to the Robinson 24.

After Wyatt ran for nine yards to the 15, the Seahawks gave the ball to Smith, who turned upfield on the right side and ran in for a touchdown to make it 6-0.

On its next possession, South Lakes had a first down on the Robinson 10 but had to settle for a 22-yard field goal by James Marburg that made it 9-0 with 10:11 to go in the half.

Both teams failed to move the ball until late in the half when sophomore David Landeryou stepped in front of a Cole Frank pass and returned the interception 25 yards to the Robinson three. Three plays later, Wyatt hit Joshua Dagbe for a 5-yard touchdown that made it 16-0 with 2:03 left in the half.

“It was a sprint out and just read it and jumped the route,” said Landeryou. “We’re thinking more in terms of turnovers this year. It’s an emphasis in practice.”

Three plays after that, Dagbe intercepted another Frank pass, turned from the middle to the left, then ran 65 yards for a touchdown to make it 23-0 with 1:45 to play.

“We got off to a bad start,” Wyatt said. “No intensity until the second quarter. But we were thinking the whole time about how they’ve been talking about us all summer and what all they were going to do with us. And we had to make sure that didn’t happen.”

Robinson Gets On Board, But South Lakes Puts Game Away

The game again settled into a quagmire that lasted until after halftime, when Robinson scored its only touchdown when Timothy Lai of the Rams recovered a partially blocked punt and ran it in from 26 yards out to make it 23-7.

South Lakes didn’t score again until the fourth quarter when they drove 64 yards in 12 plays with Smith getting the touchdown on an 8-yard run that featured a breathtaking mid-run change of direction.

The Seahawks averaged more than 40 yards per punt in a game for the first time in three seasons. That included a 62-yard punt to the Robinson 8 in the first quarter and a 45-yard punt to the 1 in the fourth quarter. “It was a rugby punt. You have to move and kick it to the side and hope for a roll. And we got a real fortunate bounce,” said Marburg, who took over the punting duties this week.

Unbeaten Battlefield Up Next For South Lakes

The Seahawks, who racked up 20 first downs and their highest rushing total in more than two seasons, improved to 2-0 going into next week’s home game against Battlefield. The Bobcats, now 2-0 after an 18-7 victory over Mountain View last night, stunned the Seahawks with a late kickoff return last season to win 20-16.

Robinson fell to 0-1, and Hescock acknowledged that the Rams were at a disadvantage because South Lakes had played and they hadn’t.

“They’re tough, and Gerry Pannoni is a great coach and hats off to them,” Hescock said. “They’ll get a lot better. Glad we faced them early.”

Robinson 7, South Lakes 30

Scoring

SL — James Smith 15 run (kick failed)
SL — James Marburg 22 FG
SL — Joshua Dagbe 5 pass from Christian Wyatt (Marburg kick)
SL — Dagbe 65 interception return (Marburg kick)
R — Timothy Lai 26 blocked punt return (kick good)
SL — Smith 8 run (Marburg kick)

Team Statistics

Rushing leaders — Robinson: Fabian Cacares 8-30, Tyler Cabrera 7-57, Cole Frank 10-minus 11. South Lakes: Christian Wyatt 18-126, James Smith 18-124, Nick Picarelli 2-19, Joshua Dagbe 1-1, Sean Ventura 3-11.

Passing — Robinson: Frank 9-3-2, 15 yards. South Lakes: Wyatt 30-16-0, 141 yards; Gavin Satterfield 1-1-0, 5 yards.

Receiving — Robinson: Cacares 1-11, Moises Donado 2-4. South Lakes: Picarelli 8-67, Dagbe 6-45, TD; George Zarechnak 2-13, Joey Kister 1-6.