Prep football: St. Vincent falls to Clear Lake in 56-55 North Coast Section finale

Oh, the insanity that is high school football.

In Saturday’s North Coast Section Division 7 championship game, top-seeded St. Vincent and No. 2 Clear Lake certainly let insanity prove its worth.

In a game where 111 total points were scored, it was Clear Lake’s crucial two-point conversion with 17 seconds left that put the Cardinals on top, 56-55.

Clear Lake had a great game plan; they did a phenomenal job on offense,” St. Vincent head coach Trent Herzog said after the game. “We couldn’t get that stop late in the game, and I don’t think we had a stop in the second half. My hat’s off to coach (Mark) Cory and his coaching staff ... they made the plays tonight and we didn’t.”

To be clear, both teams made plays, plenty of them, on offense. Within the first minute and a half, St. Vincent’s Kai Hall had two rushing touchdowns and Clear Lake’s Jesse Hayes had a 81-yard kickoff return for a touchdown.

The offensive explosions were far from over, as the score read St. Vincent 41, Clear Lake 27 at halftime on the Rancho Cotate field in Rohnert Park.

The second half started the same way as the first, continuing the back-and-forth shootout. Clear Lake got back within seven before the Mustangs made it a two-score game again in the third quarter.

Late in the fourth quarter, however, it was the Cardinals’ defense that finally stepped up, forcing a turnover on downs with about six minutes left in the game. St. Vincent still led at that point 55-48.

Clear Lake drove all the way down the field to St. Vincent’s 8-yard line, converting a couple of huge fourth downs along the way.

Winding the clock all the way down, the Cardinals then ran a sweep to the right and scored to make it 55-54. The Mustangs had yet to score in the quarter. A two-point conversion was coming up, and Clear Lake’s coach had no doubt they were going to go for it.

“I knew exactly what we were going to do when we got the ball,” Cory said. “We did this last week, we’ve done it a few other times this year ... I just kept telling them we need one, we’ll get the ball and we’re going for two.”

The Cardinals’ prior experience in such situations paid off, as Cody Hayes caught the pass to give Clear Lake a one-point lead.

St. Vincent got the ball back with only seconds on the clock but couldn’t avoid its first defeat of the year.

Despite the loss, St. Vincent’s stars shone bright on the evening. Kai Hall is now the Mustangs’ record-holder for single-season rushing yards. His 221 rushing yards Saturday brought him to 1,956, which passes Kris Farinha. Both players needed 13 games to set the record.

Hall also had five rushing touchdowns, ending his prep career with 76 rushing scores and 81 total.

Mustangs quarterback Jaret Bosarge also became the newest member of the exclusive 1,000-1,000 yardage club. He had already completed the passing half earlier this season, and only needed 59 rushing yards Saturday to do it — which he did easily, rushing for 155 yards.

The Mustangs will graduate 10 seniors from this year’s group, all of whom made tremendous contributions to the program, Herzog said.

“I’m so proud of those guys, and this game does not define them,” Herzog said of his seniors. “What defines them is what they’ve done over the past four years. When they got here, we had one of the worst programs in the North Bay. The amount of games they won, they amount of records they set, that’s what is going to define them. It’s really sad to lose them.”

This season was also the first time that St. Vincent won 12 games in its history. The Mustangs, the NBL-Redwood champions, finish the season at 12-1.