PETALUMA - In a battle of Marin County versus Sonoma County, Tamalpais-Mill Valley got its first win of the year over Petaluma, 27-19, on a cold, windy night at Ellison Field.
Tamalpais faced a fourth-and-13 with 6:37 to go, with a 20-13 lead, but the Trojans jumped offsides two times in a row, and on the next play on fourth-and-three, Aidan Newell threw his second touchdown pass of the game to Ben Reade for 28 yards to put the Hawks up 27-13 and sealed the deal.
“That’s a case of having a young team, making young team mistakes. We’re inexperienced and things like that happen to those type of teams,” said Petaluma head coach Rick Krist.
The Red Tailed Hawks ran all over Petaluma early. Crewe Hutson began his night by scoring on Tamalpais’ opening drive, pouncing in from nine yards out to give them an early 7-0 lead.
After the teams exchanged defensive stops, Reade took the handoff on the sweep for four yards and plunged into the end zone for an early 14-0 lead.
“Reade, Newell, and Hutson are all three-year varsity veterans. They have a great work ethic and use it to put in a lot of work,” said Tamalpais head coach Matthew LemMon.
Danny Jenkins was the stopper in the first half on the defense. Jenkins finished with 10 tackles, and was hitting Trojans hard left and right.
“Danny is a rugby all star. He actually misses a lot of our summer workouts, but when he comes in the fall he is ready to go and is the anchor of our defense,” said LemMon.
Petaluma received the kickoff in the second half and made it worth it. QB Jack Hartman led them down the field, with some rare help in the air on a 14-yard pass completion to Ryan Sullivan, and then finished off by a Dante Ratto 20-yard touchdown run. Petaluma cut the deficit to 14-7.
“We came out with a lot of energy in the second half. We had our feet wet and our guys were ready to go,” said Krist.
The Hawks responded big time. Reade scored his second touchdown of the game on a 70-yard touchdown completion, making Petaluma defenders miss all the way to the end zone. It was Newell’s first touchdown pass of the game, which made it 20-7 Hawks after the missed PAT.
Petaluma began the fourth quarter inside the red zone. Hartman tried a few times to get them in the end zone, once himself and another try by Luis Lozano. On third down they got in as Hartman dove in for his first touchdown of the game. Lozano missed the PAT as it remained 20-13.
Hartman would add another one-yard QB sneak for a touchdown in the final 3 minutes, but the Trojan defense couldn’t get a stop to get their offense the ball back.
“Jack (Hartman) is a great player and he made a lot of great plays tonight. He’s going to develop into a fantastic player for us,” Krist said.
Newell finished 12-of-16 passing for 216 yards and the two scores. Reade had 135 receiving yards and two touchdowns, with one rushing touchdown for Tamalpais. Hartman had two touchdowns for Petaluma.
Tamalpais is 1-0 and they will travel to Albany to battle St. Mary’s.
Petaluma is 0-1 for the first time in three years, and will host Santa Rosa in the battle for the club, one of the oldest rivalries in Northern California.
