Football: Amador Valley Upends Livermore In Homecoming Victory

Amador Valley 14, Livermore 12

The Star: Amador Valley running back Nick Griffin scored the game-winning touchdown, while his backfield mate Carter Ridgway showed big play ability racking up 91 yards on eight carries.

The Turning Point: After trailing at the half and for the entire third quarter, Livermore started to seize momentum with a fourth quarter touchdown drive capped off by a 10-yard run by quarterback Zach McPherson. The Cowboys defense stood tall and shut the Dons out in the final period, giving their offense a chance to take the lead, trailing by two points with less than five minutes remaining. The Cowboys drove the ball inside the Amador 30-yard line with less than three minutes to go, when a Livermore running back fumbled on an outside sweep and Amador recovered.

The Quote: "Our defense did a great job. They have two running backs that are really good players and I thought our guys did great job in dealing with them. They also made some great plays and got some turnovers." — Amador Valley coach Rick Sira.

What's Next? Livermore hosts Monte Vista next Friday at 7 p.m. Amador Valley takes to the road to face the mighty De La Salle Spartans.

Bottom Line: The key to Amador Valley’s victory was a stout, opportunistic defense and the ability to protect the football on offense. The Dons won the turnover battle and connected on both extra points, which ended up being the difference in the contest.

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Amador Valley tripped up Livermore, 14-12, in front of a crazed, homecoming capacity crowd Friday night.

The victory was a serious bounce back performance for the Dons, who took a 51-10 beating at the hands of San Ramon Valley last week. The match also put Amador in the win column in the ultra-competitive East Bay Athletic League.

 “We were able to (capitalize) on some turnovers,” said Amador coach Rick Sira. “Our offense moved the ball well enough to score two touchdowns. Our scout defense did a great job this week simulating Livermore’s defense. Livermore is great at creating turnovers and prying footballs loose and I do not think we fumbled once.”

It was a game decided on turnovers and two failed extra points.

Livermore turned the football over four times with two fumbles and a pair of interceptions. The final fumble and two interceptions came inside of three minutes in the fourth quarter and sealed the Cowboys fate.

“Penalties and turnovers really changed the game for us today,” lamented Livemore coach Greg Haubner. “We had points taken off the board because of a holding call. We were going into score and win the game and the ball comes out. The side referee says he was down, while the field judge said he was not.”

Even in defeat, the Cowboys' star Demariay Drew looked like the best player on the field. He tallied two sacks and rushed 14 times for 110 yards, including a miraculous 21-yard touchdown run where he fumbled the ball in the backfield and circled around the Dons closing defenders to scamper down the sideline. Five-yards out, he was met by three Amador defenders, who rode Drew’s back straight into the end zone.

“It was a broken play, and [Drew] is terrific in open space,” said Haubner. “He is a tremendous athlete and our best player. It is too bad we could not get a win for him and the rest of our guys. We had our opportunities and could not get it done.”

On both Cowboys’ scores they were unable to covert on the extra point attempts. On the first score they shanked the kick and on the second the Dons stuffed Drew’s two-point conversion dive.

“Those (failed extra-points) were tough to watch,” added Haubner. “Those are tough things that happened and we are going to kick ourselves when we watch the film tomorrow and see all the opportunities we failed to capitalize on.”

Sira kept a steady hand on the Amador offense churning our first downs with a consistent but unspectacular ground game.

One of the Dons’ bevy of backs, Carter Ridgway made the most of his eight carries, tallying 91 yards and one of the teams’ two scores. He also provided the game’s longest run, displaying impressive burst on a 74-yard strike down the middle.

On defense, Amador’s Jarrod Graves picked off a Zach McPherson pass to end the Cowboy’s comeback attempt with only 2:11 remaining in the game.

With only one second remaining in the fourth, Graves fellow linebacker, Mitchell Mayo, sealed the Dons’ victory by intercepting the Livermore “hail Mary” attempt.

“The defense played extremely well all game long,” remarked Sira. “A win is huge. We all know we played poorly last week. To come back this week and put this together… we are all extremely proud of them.”

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Amador Valley 14, Livermore 12

Livermore           0  6  0   6—    12

Amador Valley   0  7  7   0   — 14

Scoring summary
10:30, 1^st: L — Drew 21 run (kick no good)

1:30, 2^nd: A — Ridgway 1 run (Flanzbaum kick)

3:38, 3^rd: A — Griffen 10 run (Johns kick)

10:57, 4^th: L— McPherson 10 run (failed two-point conversion-run)

Records: Livermore 3-2 (0-2). Amador Valley 3-2 (1-1).

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