Butte blasts Sac City for fifth straight win

By Travis Souders, OrovilleMR

BUTTE VALLEY >> All the Butte College football team wanted heading toward the home stretch of the Nor Cal League schedule was to control its own playoff destiny.

With a 42-13 thumping of Sacramento City on Saturday at Cowan Stadium, the Roadrunners are in that very situation — with their biggest game of the season now a week away.

Marvel Harris turned in another monster performance, rushing for 177 yards on 23 carries with two touchdowns, and Zach Kline had three of his seven passes go for scores as Butte (6-2, 3-0 Nor Cal) knocked the Panthers (5-3, 2-1) from the ranks of the Nor Cal unbeaten and maintained a first-place tie atop the conference.

That issue will be resolved next Saturday, when Butte travels to Sacramento to take on state-ranked No. 1 American River. In the meantime, however, the Roadrunners can celebrate a decisive victory that also represents their fifth straight.

"We got better today and I'm super glad about that," Butte head coach Jeff Jordan said. "I didn't see the score being this in my head, but we played physically and we're in a good place. To have a chance to play American River, to play the No. 1 team in the state, and have the opportunity to accomplish everything we set out to accomplish back in January, that's a good position to be in."

The Panthers entered with designs of dropping a disappointing loss on the hosts, with some heavy momentum of their own and an offensive unit predicated around the high-flying efficiency and production of quarterback Jason Samuels and wideouts Jordan Morrison and Terrell Crawford. Samuels completed 20 of his 32 attempts, but only for 146 yards, and he never got Sac City into the end zone. Morrison and Crawford combined for 12 catches for 105 yards. And perhaps most importantly, Butte intercepted three Panther passes, two from Samuels in the red zone that extinguished threatening drives that could have drastically changed the landscape of this contest.

"I was really proud of our defense today," Jordan said. "We kept it in front of us and we settled down, didn't let any big plays happen, and the three interceptions were absolutely huge."

Sacramento led early after an impressive opening drive, going 75 yards on 17 plays and sanding 6:20 off the clock before Josh Hadley punched in a short touchdown run, but after that, it was all Butte. Harris' 3-yard run at the 6:14 mark of the first quarter gave the Roadrunners the lead (the Panthers had missed the point after on their first score), and early in the second, the Roadrunners built their lead when Kline hit Jalen Amis over the middle for a 40-yard touchdown pass that saw the wideout slalom through the secondary to find pay dirt. Four minutes later, Harris added a 7-yard TD run to make it 21-6, and though the Panthers got a score back on the second short scoring run from Hadley at 5:23 in the second quarter, the Roadrunners turned it into a runaway before the half ended. Kline connected with seldom-used Bryant Isabell on a 6-yard touchdown pass, and then later in the third quarter Stephon Jerome all alone on a 35-yard post strike.

Alex Laurel's 2-yard TD run late in the game punctuated the victory, one that saw Butte's offense pile up 430 yards of offense with nary a turnover and only 11 passes thrown. That didn't mean the Roadrunner quarterback Kline was invisible; on the contrary, he rushed for 90 yards — more than Sac City did as a team — and put three different Roadrunners in the end zone.

"We're clicking, we really have our identity and everyone's putting in the work," Kline said. "Definitely, Butte is known to pound the ball, and everyone knows that, so it's our foundation. We respond to whatever happens in the game, and that's what makes a good offense and a good team. I feel like we're there right now."

Whatever the formula was for this game, Butte will try to get it bottled for next week, when they face the Beavers in what could ultimately be the clinching game in the Nor Cal League. A Butte win would mean at least a tie for the league title and, at worst, the fourth, at-large spot in the regional playoffs; a win for ARC would mean that Butte would have to win out and probably get some help in the regular season's final week.

"We look at every opponent week-to-week as the best team we'll face, and they're definitely a great team," Kline said. "We have to go in and have a game like we did today, have another week of practice like we had this last week and make sure it translates to the field."

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