1 week Ago By Jahson Nahal
The Vacaville Christian High School football team fell victim to Lindhurst’s run-heavy offense in Friday’s 45-0 loss. The Falcons needed to limit the Blazers’ run game if they wanted any shot in this one, but like others before them, they failed. Lindhurst’s rushing attack blazed a trail right through the middle of the Falcons’ defense to rack up 283 yards and four touchdowns on 42 carries.
“When you’re thin on the defensive line, and we’re not making any excuses, those drives are hard to sustain and eventually the dam breaks,” Vacaville Christian head coach Manuel Tarango said. The Blazers’ rushing success started with Andrew Redfield powering through defenders for chunks of yardage. The threat of Redfield rushing up the middle opened the door for misdirections and reverses that had the Falcons defense fooled.
The first instance of this came on an end-around to Alex Covarrubias who had 28 yards of green grass ahead of him with the defense keyed in on the power run. Covarrubias crossed the plane untouched to give the Blazers an early 7-0 lead. “There was a couple of times where we were selling out to stop the trap and they were getting us on the bootleg or the end-around so that was on us,” Tarango said.
“We just gotta look at the film and fix it.” Things went downhill quickly for the Falcons, who fumbled on their ensuing play to set up a 19-yard Redfield rushing touchdown. Redfield finished as the Blazers’ leading rusher with 105 yards on 15 carries.
Heading into Vacaville Christian’s fourth offensive drive, Tre Bondurant subbed in at quarterback for Dylan Eddings, who went out to wide receiver. Bondurant’s dual-threat ability gave the offense a spark rushing the ball but the offensive line struggled to give him time to throw and committed numerous holding penalties. “We do a lot of roll outs with him whereas Dylan is more of a threat passing so we just need to fix setting the edge,” Tarango said.
The next three Lindhurst scores all came from running back Henri Reed, who stiff-armed a defender for a 34-yard rushing touchdown and used his speed to turn two short passes into 19-yard and 54-yard receiving touchdowns. Reed’s 54-yard touchdown came on a screen as time expired in the first half to give the Blazers a 42-0 lead going into halftime. Reed finished with 70 rushing yards and all of Lindhurst’s 75 receiving yards.
“We wouldn’t be able to make big runs like that without the men up front,” Reed said. “They showed out tonight.” The Blazers came into the second half with the intention of chewing the clock and they did just that, going on a 13-play, 10-minute drive that resulted in a field-goal.
With the game well in hand, The Falcons sustained their own 13-play drive that featured their first fourth-down conversion of the game after going 0-3 on fourth downs in the first half. Vacaville Christian’s inability to convert fourth downs constantly gave Lindhurst better field position which was no help for a defense that was reeling all night long. “We all year long have been shooting ourselves in the foot,” Tarango said.
“We just have to get better on first and second down to set us up so we don’t have those long fourth downs.” Vacaville Christian will look to bounce back against San Juan on Friday in a battle between two winless Sierra Delta League teams..
