Benefield: Cardinal Newman kicker keeps on delivering

Ethan Kollenborn just wanted to go home.

It was cold. It was wet. The rain never let up Saturday night. He and his Cardinal Newman teammates had been on the field for hours. But the game was tied and Kollenborn was tapped to take a 34-yard field goal.

If he misses, the Cardinals go into overtime against the Marin Catholic Wildcats and everybody stays wet and stays cold.

So Kollenborn, the deadeye kicker for the Cardinals, walked onto the field with just seconds remaining in regulation in the North Coast Section Division 4 final Saturday, thinking he’d do everyone a favor: Let me just pop this through the uprights and everybody can get on their way to their warm cars.

But he should have known. He should have seen it coming. His walk-off, game-winning field goal would actually prolong the Cardinals’ night, sending players and coaches onto the field, prompting celebrations and photo ops with the NCS championship pennant.

So much for getting out of the rain. And it turns out that Kollenborn, as cold as he was, is OK with how it all ended.

“I got to see the last part of it because one of the players on the other team had knocked me back,” he said. “Even though it’s not always the best thing to get hit by another player, I was able to - it was almost like an out-of-body experience - I got to step back and look at it go through and watch us win the game.”

Kollenborn’s second deep field goal of the night propelled the No. 1-seeded Cardinals (12-1) to a 13-10 win over No. 2 seed Marin Catholic, securing the section title and launching them into Friday’s Division 3-AA NorCal Regional championship game against Los Gatos.

“He’s a pretty clutch guy,” Cardinal Newman coach Paul Cronin said. “He doesn’t freak out.”

So confident is Cronin in No. 16 that when Cardinal Newman’s final drive ended with a crucial completion by senior quarterback Jackson Pavitt to senior Justin Lafranchi that put the ball inside the 30-yard line with just enough time for a field goal attempt, the coach insists he knew the win was theirs.

“I went and hugged Jackson because I knew the game was over,” he said.

Notice there that Cronin hugged Pavitt but stayed clear of Kollenborn. Turns out it’s a rule of sorts. Cronin, who earned his 200th coaching win with the victory, has been prohibited by those in the know from talking to Cardinal kickers.

“I’ve been banned from talking to kickers. I haven’t talked to a kicker in about seven years,” he said. “Roy told me, ‘Hey, shut up and let me deal with the kickers.’”

He’s only partially kidding.

“No. Never. No. Not a word,” said Cardinal Newman kicking coach Roy Edwards about his ban on other coaches’ interaction with his guys. “What they all used to say, and I’d get really upset with them all, was, ‘Kick it hard!’ I finally said, ‘That would be like saying to a receiver, ‘Just catch the ball.’”

“I make sure. I make damn sure” no one talks to kickers, he said. “We established that so long ago.”

Cronin operates on a need-to-know basis with his kicking squad. As in, where does the offense need to get to give the kicker a real shot at getting three points? Turns out that with Kollenborn, they don’t need to get as close to the end zone as your average high school team.

He hit that 34-yarder to win it Saturday and that was after he ended the second quarter with a 46-yard field goal. He’s hit a 50-yarder this season. He hit a 36-yarder against Placer, 37-yarders against both Ukiah and Piner, 40-yarders against Windsor and Analy and 42- and 43-yarders against Placer and Rancho Cotate, respectively. His long of the season - 50 yards - came in a 49-0 win against Maria Carrillo on Nov. 4. Point-after attempts? He’s hit 56 of 59 this season.

His range and his consistency make Cardinal Newman incredibly dangerous and infuse a level of confidence that can be priceless.

“It makes you feel really comfortable,” Cronin said. “Without a kicker, you are so far away.”

And having a kicker with ice in his veins makes just about any distance feel like it’s within striking range. Heck, you even have room for error.

Cronin was quick to point out that in the closing minutes of the second quarter Saturday night, the Cardinals’ offense successfully drove into Kollenborn’s range - setting up a 41-yarder. Then they got dinged for delay of game. Suddenly Kollenborn is lining up for a 46-yarder. No problem. Kollenborn nailed it to send Cardinal Newman into the half with a 10-0 lead.

“You just know those points are going to be big,” Cronin said. “We’re going into the locker room excited because we played well in the first half. Those things really matter.”

Another example of Kollenborn’s steely makeup?

Against Placer, the Cardinals drove to set up a 42-yarder at the close of the first quarter. Kollenborn nailed it. But the referees decided the play got off too late and should have been the first play of the second quarter. So Kollenborn lines up again. Nailed it again.

“He hits the same kick twice,” Cronin said.

It hasn’t always been roses for Kollenborn. He missed a crucial field goal against Liberty and missed a point-after attempt, too. The Cardinals lost 17-13. It was their only loss of the season.

“Liberty was a wake-up call for me,” he said. “As you can imagine, that was a bit of a strike in the head. Nobody ever really thought I was going to miss a field goal. I wasn’t really sure I would, either. But I went out there and I did miss.”

On the sideline, Edwards could see Kollenborn was struggling to shake it off.

“He had his head down, of course,” Edwards said. “I said, ‘Hey, you signed up for this job, it’s part of it. Next kick, bud, OK?’

“If you don’t have a short memory, it’s like being a (defensive back), you are going to get beat, you are going to miss,” Edwards said. “We always say, ‘Next kick.’ Don’t pout about missing. Everyone misses. You don’t believe me? Watch on Sunday, and they make millions.”

Kollenborn hasn’t always played football, but he’s always been a kicker. He started out a soccer player. When he looked into playing football, he wasn’t immediately keen on kicking.

“Everyone told me it wasn’t the manliest position,” he said.

Apparently, Kollenborn didn’t need the macho cred. He wrestled to a sixth-place finish at 182 pounds last season in the North Coast Section tournament. ?He insists that standing on the edge of the wrestling mat preparing to take on a competitor is more difficult, and lonelier, than lining up to kick a game-winner in the middle of a football field.

There is a self-admitted isolation to what he does, much like being exposed on a wrestling mat. But Kollenborn said all of the tedium of technique work, all of the repetition to create muscle memory and all of the solo strikes of the ball with just him, Edwards and a tee are worth it.

“That’s all I can think about really when I talk about kicking, is performing for these guys because they are all super special to me,” he said, nodding at the players working out nearby. “I have to do it for these guys.”

Kollenborn embraces the technical and analytical side as well as the emotional art. Edwards said developing a kicking routine is much like mastering a golf swing. But Kollenborn has never played golf. He just likes the minutiae of it all.

The lefty takes two and a half steps back from the spot and two and a half steps to his right before every kick. It’s the same routine for point-after attempts as it is for field goals as it is for kickoffs. No deviation.

In video of Saturday night’s game winner, you can see Kollenborn take his back steps, then his side steps and immediately signal with this left hand a motion near his neck. It almost looks like a “cut it off” signal, but it shows that he’s ready. Next, he looks up briefly at the uprights, then as he drops his chin, he nods. About two seconds later, the ball is snapped to junior holder John Headley, who, also dealing with the cold and rain, sets up Kollenborn.

Swing. Strike. Good.

“I didn’t see him for about 10 minutes,” Edwards said of the celebrations that ensued. “When I saw him, I just put my arm around him and said, ‘I knew you’d make it.’”

Everybody was cold, but I’ll bet nobody noticed. Even the guy with ice in his veins.

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud, “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”