Trees have featured prominently in sports. There are college football tree-themed programs such as THE Ohio State Buckeyes, the state tree of Ohio. There are official mascots such as the Copper Mountain College Fighting Cacti and a notable unofficial mascot, the Stanford Tree. There are athletes including Tree Rollins, the 7’1” center who played 18 seasons in the NBA, Robert Woods, a wide receiver on the Tennessee Titans whose nickname is “Bobby Trees”, and Julian Edelman, a former wide receiver on the New England Patriots whose nickname was Squirrel (ok that is a bit of a stretch). There is also the Lone Cypress at Pebble Beach, the Sycamore Tree in the end zone at Ursinus College which was featured in a 1993 Trivial Pursuit question, a fake high school named Bishop Sycamore that actually managed to play a nationally-televised game on ESPN against IMG Academy, and of course the Lumberjack World Championship featured annually on ESPN “The Ocho”.
The tree references, of course, are because the Dons faced the Redwood Giants, who traveled from Larkspur to Lafayette on Saturday for an across-the-bay showdown. The Dons were coming off an unexpected bye week driven by the heat wave that led to the cancellation of their game against Sheldon High School. Perhaps showing signs of rust, the Dons fell behind 21-0 early into the third quarter. The issues were on both sides of the ball, and were exacerbated by a host of penalties that not only cost the Dons field position, but oftentimes negated big offensive plays.
After the slow start, the Dons settled down. On Defense, Brady Wall continued to cause havoc all over the field, Nicky Fosina had a big tackle for a 7-yard loss, Drew McKenzie recorded yet another sack and pressured the QB in a critical 4th down situation, Jake Yoshinaka showed his range by making several tackles on screen passes, David Roux came back from injury and made an immediate impact, Colby Ebner continued to make good open field tackles, Jonah Rivera had such a big hit everyone in the stands heard it, David Gonzales and Griffin Ames made a number of plays out of the safety position, and Brendan Miles had a couple of big plays towards the end of the game that gave the opportunity to the offense to make one last push for the end zone.
On offense, Eitan Romick continued to be the workhorse in the backfield both via the run and pass. He was routinely able to find holes created by the offensive line and often broke several tackles before the Redwood defense was able to get him down. He also provided a great target out of the backfield for QB Jake Colaco, who relied on him heavily, particularly when pressured. Eitan also caught on a 5-yard screen for the Dons first touchdown of the day.
Niko White continued to do damage on kickoff and punt returns, inside handoffs, and receptions down the field. One of his highlights was a 30-yard catch down the sideline where he was able to stay in bounds for extra yards that set up the second touchdown of the game for the Dons, a short yardage Wildcat formation where linebacker Brady Wall lined up under center and barreled his way into the end zone.
The other wide receivers also got in on the action. Tyler Kim had a few nice catches, and one long catch called back via penalty. Jonah Orlando got his first start at receiver and converted on his first opportunity of the season. JB Frolich had several big catches, including a 41-yard reception down the sideline early in the game, the longest play of the day.
With time running out, the Dons had a chance to tie or win the game with a drive starting at their own 20-yard line. The drive began with a 29-yard rollout pass from Jake to JB, but then the drive stalled as a few incompletions and false start penalties culminated in a game-ending interception on 4th and 20 as Jake’s pass was tipped as he tried to make a desperation pass down the sideline to Niko.
The Dons play their next game on October 7th at 4:30pm at home against Las Lomas
