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North Tahoe football falls 36-0 to West Wendover on homecoming

Quarterback Thomas Mercogliano looks to escape the West Wendover defense during North Tahoe’s loss on Saturday, Sept. 16.
Justin Scacco / Sierra Sun |

The North Tahoe Lakers football team had their three-game winning streak to start the year snapped on Saturday, Sept. 16, in a 36-0 defeat to West Wendover.

The game served as the Class 2A Northern League opener for the two schools and was North Tahoe’s (3-1, 0-1 Northern League) homecoming, but it would be West Wendover (2-2, 1-0 Northern League) taking a dominant win after enduring the roughly 6-hour bus ride to Tahoe City from the Nevada / Utah border.

“Our goal this week was just to stay consistent, and be disciplined on defense,” West Wendover Head Coach Jerome Reamer said. “We knew they had good running backs, a quarterback, receivers that got a lot of yardage in the first few games — our goal was to be disciplined on the outside, and take away that.”



The Wolverines defense was able to implement their game plan; while the team’s offense beat North Tahoe in the first half on a pair of hook-and-ladder passes for touchdowns, to go along with solid performances from running backs David Sharp and Luis Esparza.

“Wendover is a good team and they have really good receivers, and they went up and caught some nice balls,” North Tahoe Head Coach Scott Everist said.



“The kids are playing hard, but we’re back in the league and there’s tough opponents. We’re learning, we’re just young. We’ve got to get over mistakes and know our assignments a little better.”

The Lakers returned to league play for the 2017 season, but still have a roster light on upperclassmen, which showed against the more experienced Wolverines as North Tahoe struggled to move the ball on offense and committed several mistakes.

“Our line is really young, so that was tough for us today,” Everist said. “We’ve got to work on blocking, we’ve got to sustain blocks longer, and make sure we’re blocking the right assignments. Missed assignments hurt us a few times.”

Inexperience has been an issue for North Tahoe, especially over the past two weeks where players have struggled in picking up avoidable penalties and getting pulled into altercations after the whistle.

“It’s still fundamentals and coming back for the next play, and not worrying about a mistake,” said Everist. “Our guys get caught up in that a little still, but we’re getting better.”

The Lakers will face another stiff test when the team travels to Yerington (3-1, 1-0 Northern League) on Friday, Sept. 22, for their next game.

Yerington is coming off a 35-0 win over White Pine in their league opener.

Kickoff is scheduled for 7 p.m.


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