North Putnam falls to Bulldogs in final quarter; Monrovia stays perfect

Saturday, October 3, 2009
North Putnam's Darr Boruff busts through the Monrovia defensive line during Friday's WCC contest. The Cougars lost 22-16.

ROACHDALE -- Two plays.

That's all it took for the No.5 Monrovia Bulldogs to put and end to North Putnam's perfect West Central Conference record Friday night.

The first one was when Tim Conner nailed Dalton Clements for 57-yard pass, putting the Bulldogs on the 11-yard line and setting up the seven-yard touchdown run by Tim Connor four plays later.

The second one was a controversial play when Clements picked off a Kolton Everts pass at the Cougar 24-yard line and ran it back for the final 22-16 score.

"I don't know what happened there," NPHS coach Greg Barrett said about the Bulldogs interception. "First off, we were offsides, so that's a dead ball. I'll be honest with you; I don't know what even happened."

Barrett protested the touchdown, screaming that his team was offsides before the interception and saying that it was dead ball and the touchdown didn't count. But the ruling came back, and the Cougars were called for two penalties, a false start and a hold, but the Bulldogs declined the penalties for the touchdown.

"To be honest, that pass was probably the turning point in the game," Barrett said. "We had them stopped and covered well, but our corner slipped on the ground and that's part of the game and it just happens.

"We're not blaming our corner for that," Barrett added. "He was busting his butt and did a nice job and just slipped. And that's the luck of the game. Unfortunately, luck didn't go our way."

The Cougars had a chance to pull off a comeback with just under two minutes left in the game.

After Shawn Diebold fumbled the Bulldogs kickoff, the Bulldogs took the ball on the NP 25-yard line. Monrovia scored six plays later when Connor ran the ball for a six-yard touchdown on a third down conversion. But Monrovia had the touchdown taken away for a taunting call. Then Bulldogs coach, Kevin Hutchoas got flagged for unsportsmanlike conduct, pushing Monrovia back to the 37-yard line, where they failed to convert and punted.

This gave the Cougars one last shot at maintaining a perfect conference record, but it didn't happened.

The Bulldogs punt landed on the 22-yard line and with under a minute to go, the Cougars were forced to go to the air where they went four-in-out.

"We have to learn to not make these mistakes in the middle of our season," Barrett said. "We had some routes that weren't ran that should have been and some guys that didn't settle into the right spots.

"They gave us some things and we took advantage of them," Barrett said. "We played hard and executed well. We lost that game in a two-minute span in two plays. We have to take from this and get ready for next week. That's going to be a big battle for us too."

Monrovia struck first in Friday's game, scoring on its opening drive and completing the two-point conversion for an 8-0 lead. North Putnam evened the score when the Bulldogs botched a punt attempt and put the Cougars on their 33-yard line. Eight plays later, Hank Spencer crossed the goal line for a two-yard touchdown run. Then Everts connected with Kyle Adams for the two-point conversion.

North Putnam broke the 8-all deadlock in the first 2:30 of the fourth quarter when a pair of facemask calls on Monrovia gave prime field position on the Bulldogs 28-yard line. Everts then hit Travis Franklin for a 14-yard pass, then rushed the ball for six yards. Spencer followed with a six-yard touchdown run with 9:30 left in the game.

The Cougars are the first team this season to hold Monrovia to under 30 points and are the only team to score 16 points on the Bulldogs' defense.

North Putnam is now 5-2 on the season and 3-1 in the WCC and will travel to Speedway on Friday for another WCC matchup, starting at 7 p.m.

At North Putnam

North Putnam 8 0 0 8 -- 16

Monrovia 8 0 0 14 -- 22

First Quarter

MO -- Parks 39 yd run 9:25 ( Parks 3 yd)

NP -- Spencer 2 yd run 1:43 (Everts 3 yd pass Adams)

Fourth Quarter

NP -- Spencer 6 yd run 9:30 (Diebold 3 yd run)

MO -- Connor 7 yd run 6:25 (two point fail)

MO -- Clements 25 yd interception 4:39 (Parks 3 yd run)

Individual Stats

North Putnam

Rushing -- Boruff 7-11, Spencer 21-41-2, Everts 7-26, Travis 1-5, Franklin 1-5

Passing -- Everts 9-25-87-0-1

Receiving -- Vondersaar3-36, Spencer 3-23, Franklin 2-13, Shorter 1-12, Adams 1-3

Monrovia

Rushing -- Hadley 12-21, Giza 6-39, Connor 3-15, Parks 7-86-1, Clements 1-25-1

Passing -- Connor 1-5-57-1, Sitching 1-1-20

Receiving -- Connor 1-20, Clements 1-5-57

Next game -- North Putnam is now 5-2 on the season and 3-1 in the WCC and will travel to Speedway on Friday for another WCC matchup, starting at 7 p.m.