Improved Clovers eliminated by Cascade, 27-6

Saturday, October 22, 2016

CLOVERDALE — The Cloverdale Clovers welcomed the Cascade Cadets to face off in the first round of Sectional 39 in a rematch from the regular season. This time the Cadets came out on top 27-6.

“We played a good first half,” Clover head coach Tony Meyer said. “We overcame some mistakes in the first half. We were in it, and you can’t ask for anything more than that. Hats off to coach (Steve) Spinks, they came in and everything we tried to change they put a trump card on us. This was a much better team than we faced early in the year.”

Cloverdale (3-7) struck first early in the game after forcing a Cascade fumble when the Cadets were on the brink of scoring. Two plays after getting the ball, junior Nick Winders hit junior Tyler Kaeff on a long ball for an 89-yard touchdown pass to give the Clovers the lead 6-0 with 8:02 left in the first.

Unfortunately for the Clovers, they would only muster 60 yards of total offense the rest of the game. Cloverdale also had just three first downs in the game to Cascade’s 15.

Cascade answered back in the second after its workhorse, senior Tanner Fox, punched the ball in from one yard out. Fox ran the ball six times for 41 yards on the drive, picking up all of Cascade’s yards on the scoring drive with 7:06 until the half.

In the first half, Cloverdale played well, limiting the big plays and holding the Cascade offense to six points. Cascade did not throw the ball well in the first half either, completing just 1-of-5 passes.

The second half was a different story for Cascade. After forcing an opening punt by Cloverdale, the Cadets hooked up on a long touchdown of their own. Senior Chase Edwards found freshman Noah Mantooth for 86 yards and the lead with 8:39 left in the third quarter.

On the ensuing kickoff, momentum seemed to go further to the Cascade side by forcing a Cloverdale fumble and recovering at the 41-yard line. Cloverdale’s defense bore down and forced a turnover on downs and took over on the 25-yard line.

Senior Tyce Jackson picked up a first down before throwing an interception on a slight overthrow, giving the ball back to Cascade.

Cascade capitalized with 10:18 left on the clock on a pass from Edwards to junior Noah Mourey that covered 32 yards. The extra point put Cascade up 20-7.

The next two Cloverdale drives ended in interceptions and Cascade ended the scoring with a 14-yard score when Edwards hooked up with freshman Cole Edwards to extend the lead to 27-6 with a minute left and close the book on Cloverdale’s season.

Cloverdale fought hard in the game, but a lack of depth hurt the team in the end. Having 28 players on the roster means that many kids will play both ways and after a historic season, they tired out but did not back down.

“I was happy with the way we played this year,” Meyer said. “Coming in all everyone said was ‘You can’t win at Cloverdale’ and I don’t believe that. We return the core of the team and we have a big eighth-grade group coming in.”

Cloverdale won three games this year, the most since 2011 and equaled the total of the past four years combined. That alone is something to hang their hat on and with a young team, the future looks bright for the Clovers.

“You have to build your classes,” Meyer said. “My junior class is large and most of them started this year. The sophomore and senior class was small. The freshman class is decent. If you can get back-to-back big classes and hopefully we can do that over a four- to five-year period and now you’re looking at a team where you can have a two-deep at every position.”

“We play Owen Valley, Indian Creek and Northview,” Meyer said. “They have an offense and a defense, all different kids minus maybe one or two.

“Our offense was the same 11 was the same as was on defense, and you can only ask a kid to run so much and hit so much before having someone get hurt or get tired.”

Cascade 0 6 7 14 — 27

Cloverdale 6 0 0 0 — 6

Cl — Nick Winders to Tyler Kaeff 89 pass (Conversion Failed) 6-0, Q1 8:02.

Ca — Tanner Fox 1 run (Kick failed) 6-6, Q2 7:06.

Ca — Chase Edwards to Jason Mantooth 86 pass (Zach Duerloo kick) 13-6, Q3 8:39.

Ca — Edwards to Noah Mourey 32 pass (Duerloo kick) 20-6, Q4 10:18.

Ca — Edwards to Cole Edwards 14 pass (Duerloo kick) 27-6, Q4 1:10.

Ca Cl

First Downs 15 3

Rushes-yards 52-185 19-35

Passing Yards 101 114

Comp-Att-Int 4-10-0 3-11-3

Total Offense 286 149

Punts-Avg. 3-30.0 5-31.2

Fumbles-Lost 3-1 3-1

Penalties-Yards 7-73 7-65

Individual Statistics

Rushing — Cascade: Tanner Fox 35-146, Cole Horning 3-34, Jason Mantooth 4-15, Chase Edwards 7-(-100. Cloverdale: Tyce Jackson 11-30, Nick Winders 5-11, Noah Duby 3-(-6).

Passing — Cascade: Chase Edwards 4-10-3 101. Cloverdale: Nick Winders 2-8-1 102, Tyce Jackson 1-3-0 12.

Receiving — Cascade: Noah Mourey 2-47, Jason Mantooth 1-86, Cole Edwards 1-14. Cloverdale: Tyler Kaeff 1-89, Haiden Davis 1-13, Nick Winders 1-12.

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