Sports

Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008

Bullard sparks second-half surge for Atascadero

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It wasn’t necessarily pretty the entire time, but the Atascadero High football team will take the win.

After trudging along through a scoreless first half, return specialist Sterling Bullard sparked the Greyhounds by returning the kickoff to start the second half 98 yards for the game’s first touchdown Friday night.

The Greyhounds weren’t out of the woods yet. They needed an impressive performance by running back Nick Tenhaeff and some stifling defense to close out their game against Sanger.

Tenhaeff gave some rhythm to a struggling Atascadero offense. He ran for two fourth-quarter touchdowns and 137 yards in the second half, leading the Greyhounds to a 20-7 nonleague victory over visiting Sanger.

“We got the win, it wasn’t a pretty win, but a win is all that matters,” Tenhaeff said.

Unlike the first two quarters, Atascadero had no trouble moving the ball in the third quarter. The major issue was protecting it.

Quarterback Bradley Smet threw an interception that was returned 48 yards to the Greyhound 13-yard line. Two plays later, Sanger tied the score at 7 with a rushing touchdown.

On their next drive, the Greyhounds turned the ball over again, this time at the Sanger 30-yard line. The turnover didn’t prove costly, but it cost Atascadero potential points.

Finally, in the fourth everything started to click.

Tenhaeff scored two rushing touchdowns, including an 38-yarder with 2:00 remaining, which put the game out of reach.

“The line did great,” Tenhaeff said. “They did a good job blocking tonight, and I just had to follow where they let me go.”

Tenhaeff finished with 197 rushing yards, and Smet had a strong enough night passing despite throwing the interception. Smet was 5 of 8 for 57 yards, and he could have completed a 48-yard touchdown throw in the first half, but it was dropped at the goal line.

That was just one of the many first-half mistakes for the Greyhounds.

Atascadero had almost half as many penalty yards (45) as total yards (93). That number would have been even closer if it wasn’t for a 39-yard run by Tenhaeff.

On the other side of the ball, the Greyhounds pressured Apaches quarterback Aaron Perez into an 0-for-9 performance with two interceptions.

“Their offense is hard to run with a scout team,” Atascadero linebacker Trevor Holloway said. “Coming out here we were trying to get some adjustments and last-minute things that we didn’t pick up on. We caught up to it at halftime.”

The Atascadero defense provided three sacks and held the Apaches to only 139 yards of offense, including just 36 in the second half.

Except for the short-field touchdown drive, Sanger went three-and-out on its other third-quarter possessions. The Apaches had one lone first down in the fourth quarter on a drive that gained only 14 yards before a punt.

“I was a little worried about the speed at which they run their offense,” Atascadero coach Vic Cooper said. “They do a great job of it and execute very well. I don’t necessarily know if we were able to simulate that in practice all week. I think it showed a little early, but our defense adjusted to that and our defensive staff made a couple of tweaks to our game plan that really, really helped us out.”