The Acalanes Varsity Football Team put up a good fight on Friday night to the end. Campolindo got the better of the Dons with a 13 to 28 lost. Losing is part of the game. Athletes do not like losing. Who does?! The Dons have been tested and will be forced to grow…and they will be better.
Game Recap
Things started out auspiciously for the Dons when the opening kickoff sailed out of bounds for a penalty, which meant the Dons could take the ball on the 30 Yard line, instead the Dons elected to have Campo move 5 yards back and re-kick. The second kickoff was more of a knuckle ball/line drive-ish type of thing, and the redo kick got past our return man, who accidentally had his knee touch the ground while scrambling to pick it up. This placed the Dons ball at the 8 yard line. The Dons then ran 3 plays and had to punt…so much for the auspicious start!
The Cougars then took over around midfield, and took the remaining time in the 1st quarter to drive half the distance of the field to score the first touchdown of the game. This author is not a fan of a “grind it out run game” strategy, the “run left” for 3 yards, then “run right” for 3 yards… is an incredibly boring thing to watch. Especially, when the same player gets the ball 30 out of 50 plays. However, if you like that sort of thing, then you would have loved half of this game, for the was exactly Campolido’s strategy… the other half of the game… the Dons half… was exciting to watch!
The downside of a high flying, dynamic, spread the ball around, offense like Acalanes is the potential for turnovers. Acalanes has done a great job all year of protecting the football, on Friday night… they turned it over 3 times. Campo was able to capitalize on these turnovers and scored two of their touchdowns after they got the ball. Senior Quarterback, Brady Hutchingson, hit 18 of his 30 pass attempts for 181 yards. Senior Receiver Sam Heyman caught 3 of those passes for 62 yards. Junior Slot Receiver, Evan Malmquist, hauled in 5 catches for 55 yards, while Senior Tailback Nic Rossi carried the ball 13 times for 68 yards. The Dons offense likes to spread the ball around, and has the weapons and confidence to do it.
Defensively for the Don’s Outside Linebacker, Ryan Tresser had a big night with 5 solo tackles and 5 assists, 2 of those for a loss of yards! Inside Linebackers Graham Oh had 2 solo and 9 assists, and Logan Ketcham had 3 solo and 7 assists. Joe Evans and Scott Hafner each recorded a sack!
Losing to Campo is always a bitter pill to swallow. I am sure the Seniors will feel this frustration for years that they let this one get away. The Juniors are already back in the gym, thinking about extracting revenge next year, which is only a few months away when the Dons will welcome the Cougars to the 94549.
The Dons are back in action next Friday April 2nd on a road trip to Benicia High School. Kickoff is set for 7:30 pm.
GO DONS!
Written by Jim Malmquist (Proud Dad of two Acalanes Football players)