Another signature playoff ‘W’ for M-A

Yet, the Bears’ 27-20 victory over Eureka in the CIF Division 3-AA Northern California regional championship game — in what the Times Standard called “some of the hardest-hitting football that has been played on the North Coast in quite some time” — had the most character of them all.

“I’m just so proud of them,” M-A head coach Adhir Ravipati said. “Everyone contributed. Everyone played at a high level.”

It was easy to get caught up in the Troy Franklin show. Of M-A’s 304 yards of total offense, Franklin had a majority of them with 190 total yards; the sophomore wide receiver had four receptions for 108 yards and two touchdowns, and three rushes for 82 yards and one TD.

Ravipati was absolutely right, though. The Bears needed a team effort to deliver previously undefeated Eureka its first loss of the season. And they got it.

“Overall, we got the stops when we needed to,” Ravipati said. “And we did it up here on a road trip in a hostile environment.”

The Loggers were on their game as well, and sweated M-A by shutting down the game’s opening possession. That was no easy task, on a brisk night game that kicked off at 7:30 p.m. at McKinleyville High School, and proceeded to rain through the second quarter to muddy the natural turf — the first time the Bears played on natural turf all season.

“It’s raining on a mud field — people were saying all of a sudden that we couldn’t play on grass or something,” Ravipati said. “This whole thing got ridiculously out of proportion, like Bay Area teams can’t play on anything but turf. And I was like, they’re kids. Everyone’s got grass in their backyard. You know what grass is. We’re fine.”

Sophomore in the spotlight

Franklin, by design, was the focal point of M-A’s offense. He got a reception on the second play of the game, a 24-yard pickup. Eureka went on to shut down the opening drive.

After that, Eureka hammered the ball downfield to jump out to a 7-0 lead.

“Eureka’s a great team,” Ravipati said. “They do a great job offensively executing their system. They’re disciplined. Defensively, everybody does a great job to take us out of some stuff we wanted to do.”

But over M-A’s next two possessions, Franklin responded with two receptions on the Bears’ next four plays, both in the first quarter and both for touchdowns on passes from Jack Alexander. One was for 69 yards to tie it. The next — set up by a 31-yard reception by Justin Anderson — was an athletic jump-ball haul of 14 yards to give M-A a 14-7 lead.

Yes, Alexander got the start at quarterback. Due to a leg injury, the junior missed the second half a week earlier in the CCS championship game, giving way to freshman Matt MacLeod who enjoyed the debut of a lifetime.

Alexander’s return to the starting lineup started inauspiciously. He was sacked twice on the opening possession, including on fourth down at the Eureka 44-yard line to see the Loggers take over with great field position and use seven authoritative plays to jump out to a quick lead.

Bay Division MVP delivers

M-A lineman Noa Ngalu righted the ship though.

On the heels of being named the Peninsula Athletic League Bay Division Most Valuable Player, Ngalu showed up both sides of the line. On a night that ended with Ngalu face down on the muddy turf in postgame adulation, the defensive tackle executed two early stops on Eureka’s next possession, opening with a clutch tackle, teaming with senior defensive end David Tafuna to hold the quarterback Cruz Montana to a 1-yard pickup. Later, on second-and-3 from the Eureka 46, Ngalu nailed Montana for another 1-yard gain.

Two plays later, on fourth-and-inches just shy of midfield, it was junior Joe Posthauer who came up huge. A key presence at free safety, Posthauer totaled eight tackles throughout, the biggest one coming on special teams, reading a fake punt and throttling into the backfield for a 4-yard loss to force a turnover on downs.

Eureka went on to total just six first downs in the first half, and was 0 for 3 on third-down conversions and 0 for 3 on fourth-down conversions.

The Loggers turned the ball over just once — and its almost unfair to call that one a turnover — when in the second quarter, Ngalu set up M-A’s third score with a straight strip to produce the takeaway at the Eureka 31. Three plays later, running back Deston Hawkins scored the Bears’ only non-Franklin touchdown on a 5-yard run to make it 20-7.

Second-half drama

Eureka got wise on its first possession of the second half, facing fourth down and opting to punt from near midfield. M-A gave the ball right back, though, when Alexander coughed up a handoff exchange. The Loggers took over at the M-A 9 and scored three plays later on a 16-yard pass from Montana to senior Isley Tulmau to cut the lead to 20-14.

Eureka went on to tie the game on a 16-play, 73-yard drive extending into the fourth quarter that took 7:50 off the clock. The drive included two third-down conversions, and two fourth-down conversions. After a 17-yard pickup to cross midfield on a pass from Montana to senior Tyce Mullins — on the seventh play of the drive — the Loggers didn’t have a gain of more than 7 yards on the last nine plays, which went for gains of 3, 4, 2, 1, 2, 7, 0, 5 and a scoring run of 7 yards on a Montana bootleg.

The TD tied it 20-20, but the momentum swung in a hurry. Eureka missed the point-after try to keep it tied. Then, in response to the Loggers’ time-consuming drive, the Bears shot right back on the game’s next play from scrimmage with a 70-yard scoring run by Franklin.

The last eight minutes of the game ticked away slowly, though, with Eureka getting the ball three more times.

Mighty Bears ‘D’ seals the deal

On the first of them, Franklin’s heroics carried over to the defensive side. Doubling as a cornerback, the sophomore — just five plays after his go-ahead 70-yard rushing score to give the Bears a 27-20 lead — produced a key stop on third-and-16 as the only thing standing between a 10-yard run by senior Robert Weir and the first-down marker. Eureka turned the ball over on downs on the following play.

M-A senior safety Malik Johnson, on Eureka’s penultimate possession of the game, saved the lead with an outstanding read on third-and-12 from the Bears’ 23. With 1:57 remaining, and after two incompletions by Montana, Eureka went to senior running Alex Miller on a trap sweep that Johnson stuffed for a 2-yard gain. The Loggers turned it over on downs on the next play.

Johnson racked up a team-high 14 tackles, also a new career-high. Senior linebacker Daniel Heimuli added 11 tackles.

Eureka had one last-ditch effort, getting the ball back at the M-A 39 with 10 seconds left that went nowhere.

M-A totaled two sacks throughout, one from junior defensive tackle Uate Uhila and another from Johnson, his third sack of the season. For Uhila, the sack marked the first of the junior’s two-year varsity career. Eureka got to Alexander for three sacks.

According to Posthauer, the credit of M-A’s hardnosed defensive performance goes to the D-line — Uhila and senior Jack Hansen in the middle, and Ngalu and junior Dominic Paga working the ends.

“We made some defensive adjustments, but I really think we just knew what we needed to do,” Posthauer said. “We had seen everything we needed to see watching film. And our D-line especially ... they really stepped up. They really make everything easy.”