The article below originally appeared in the San Mateo Daily Journal and is being reprinted with permission.
Skying into the air to snatch a pass before tip-toeing down the sidelines with no time left on the clock, Rashaan Vaughn was five yards away from doing his best Michael Crabtree impersonation.
But those five yards turned out to be too tough a balancing attack for the College of San Mateo receiver. Vaughn couldn’t stay in bounds long enough to score on the Bulldogs’ 50-yard Hail Mary attempt, giving Butte’s sideline one final opportunity to erupt. Just a minute earlier the Roadrunners’ Nikolai Vasquez had made a 27-yard field, which would end up giving the visitors a 38-37 comeback victory Saturday.
“At the end I just kept working, but we fell a bit short,” said Vaughn, who finished the game with five catches for 206 yards and two touchdowns. “We’re going to come back Monday and go back to work.”
The Bulldogs (1-3 NorCal Conference, 6-3 overall) have now lost three straight games, but unlike their previous contest against City College of San Francisco, in which San Mateo was shut out in a 33-0 defeat, much of what the Bulldogs were doing early in Saturday’s game did work.
Tana Afeaki got the scoring started for CSM at the 12:08 mark of the first quarter by taking a pitch from Miles Freeman 16 yards up the left sideline, and Freeman (3-for-6, 152 yards) then found Vaughn for the first of their two hookups a little more than eight minutes later.
Freeman, known more for his legs in the Bulldogs’ option attack, threw a perfect lob to Vaughn for a 92-yard touchdown, making it 14-0 with two extra points by Kenny Anderson.
The next drive featured the beginning of a workhorse effort by Butte running back Tromaine Dennis, who finished with 27 carries for 126 yards and two touchdowns. Dennis scored a four-yard touchdown with 4:05 left in the first to make it 14-7 following a Vasquez kick.
CSM answered with a 53-yard catch and run by Vaughn and a 1-yard run by Danny Godfrey to get into the end zone to help make it 27-7 at halftime. Freeman’s day was done at this point, though, as the signal-caller broke his collarbone late in the second quarter.
A missed extra point by Anderson following Vaughn’s second quarter score would prove to be costly, as the third and fourth quarters would belong to the Roadrunners, who outscored the Bulldogs 31-10 in the
second half.
“We’ve been a second half team all season and this is how it’s been for us every dang game,” Butte coach Jeff Jordan.
Roadrunners quarterback Jon Hays (16-for-25 for 243 yards) scored on a 1-yard sneak early in the third, Dennis found paydirt on a 10-yard carry off tackle four minutes later and Rashad Ross made what might have been the play of the game by returning a CSM punt 85 yards for a touchdown with 3:13 left in the quarter. In between Hays’ and Dennis’
touchdowns, Bulldogs quarterback Julian Bernard had a 4-yard keeper for a score, but CSM would not find the end zone again the rest of the day.
“I think it all swung on that punt,” said Bulldogs coach Bret Pollack, who noted that field position was something CSM gave away with shorter kicks and punts in an effort to keep the ball out of Ross’s hands.
“They got great field position,” he said. “The onus was on (our) offense to score or move the ball down there.”
Anderson converted a 37-yard field goal to keep the Bulldogs ahead 37-28, but Butte clearly had the momentum as it drove 56 yards down the field in five plays, ending with a 6-yard touchdown run by Markus Preciado. The winning kick by Vasquez, who missed an attempt earlier in the game from 37 yards and has struggled throughout the year, came with just 3 seconds to play.
Small CSM miscues such as an extra point and errant punt proved to be the difference.
“This game is not always forgiving, it’s not always fair,” Pollack said. “I thought we gave the effort to deserve to win, but we had some mental lapses.”
Butte, which entered the contest ranked fourth in the state and second in Northern California, improves to 3-1 in NorCal and 8-1 overall with the victory.
Butte College 38, College of San Mateo 37
BC — 7 0 21 10 38
CSM — 20 7 7 3 37
Scoring Summary
CSM — Afeaki 16 run (Anderson kick)
CSM — Vaughn 92 pass from Freeman (Anderson kick)
BC — Dennis 4 run (Vasquez kick)
CSM — Vaughn 53 pass from Freeman (Kick failed)
CSM — Godfrey 1 run (Anderson kick)
BC — Hays 1 run (Vasquez kick)
CSM — Bernard 4 run (Anderson kick)
BC — Dennis 10 run (Vasquez kick)
BC — Ross 85 punt return (Vasquez kick)
CSM — Anderson 37 kick
BC — Preciado 6 run (Vasquez kick)
BC — Vasquez 27 kick
Individual Statistics
RUSHING (carries-yards): COLLEGE OF SAN MATEO — Liu 16-90, McGowan
8-93, Celestine 7-68, Godfrey 5-22, Freeman 5-20, Bernard 4-19, Afeaki
3-26, Team 1-(-1). Totals 49-337. BUTTE COLLEGE — Dennis 27-126,
Preciado 8-43, Ross 5-14, Hays 7-(-3). Totals 47-180.
PASSING (comp-att-yds-td-int): COLLEGE OF SAN MATEO — Freeman
3-6-152-2-0, Bernard 4-7-62-0-0. Totals 7-13-214-2-0. BUTTE COLLEGE —
Hays 16-25-243-0-0, Robert 0-1-0-0-0. Totals 16-26-243-0-0.
RECEIVING (catches-yards): COLLEGE OF SAN MATEO — Vaughn 5-206, Watson
1-6, Afeaki 1-2. Totals 7-214. BUTTE COLLEGE — Anthony 3-77, Brinkman
3-39, McKenzie 2-40, White 2-14, Dennis 2-22, Ross 2-18, Spain 1-18,
Jiles 1-15. Totals 16-243.
TOTAL OFFENSE (rush-pass-total): COLLEGE OF SAN MATEO — 337-214-551.
BUTTE COLLEGE — 180-243-423.
