Napa Football shows promise despite loss to Bulldogs
Napa High School lost its Monticello Empire League opener, falling 35-21 to Vacaville at Tom Zunino Stadium on Friday night. Despite the loss, Napa showed that it could play with Vacaville, listed No. 3 in the Sac-Joaquin Section Freeman rankings, No. 7 in the CaHiSports.com Division II North bowl rankings, and No. 16 in the CalHiSports.com Northern California CIF Open Division Top 20.
Melvin Mason (27 carries, 125 yards, two touchdowns) and Curtis Goins (16 carries, 78 yards, one touchdown) led the Vacaville rushing offense, but the longest run for Mason was 16 yards and the longest carry for Goins was 15 yards.
“We expected to face a good team tonight and we did,” said Napa coach Troy Mott.
Vacaville (5-1 overall) went in front 21-0 in the first half. The Bulldogs scored on their first two possessions, driving 66 yards in 13 plays and 69 yards in seven plays. Vacaville scored again in the first half, going 64 yards in nine plays.
“We worked hard at practice all week,” said Goins, who caught a 31-yard touchdown pass and scored from a yard out. “We came prepared and we just wanted it more. We thought it was going to be a hard battle throughout the whole game. This one is real big.”
Mason had scoring runs from three and five yards.
But Napa (3-3 overall) came back against Vacaville, as Zack Scheinholz’s 21-yard run with 5:44 to go in the third quarter cut Vacaville’s lead to seven points (21-14), capping an eight-play, 48-yard drive. David Hunt’s 16-yard run with 11:39 to go, capping a march of 69 yards in nine plays, pulled Napa within seven points (28-21).
“They’re obviously in the driver’s seat and they’re a good team,” Mott said of Vacaville.
Scheinholz ran for 118 yards on 18 carries and scored two touchdowns and Hunt had 77 yards on 11 attempts. But after that, there wasn’t much in the way of offense for Napa, which was penalized 10 times for 60 yards.
The difference was Vacaville’s 385 yards of total offense and no turnovers and the fact the Bulldogs answered Napa’s two second-half TDs by scoring themselves.
Napa had 287 yards of total offense and one turnover.
Napa will look to break a two-game losing streak when it faces Armijo Friday at Memorial Stadium at 7:30 p.m.