High school football: Clayton Valley’s decision to punt against San Ramon Valley pays off

CONCORD — On fourth-and-four midway through the fourth quarter Friday night, Clayton Valley Charter coach Tim Murphy flirted with the idea of sneaking the ball for a first down rather than punting, but his gut instinct told him differently.

It turned out to be the right choice. As quarterback Brenden Bush snapped the ball for the punt, the Ugly Eagles were penalized, pushing them back five yards. Now, Murphy and his squad were forced to punt the ball.

As the ball went sailing and had a good forward bounce, San Ramon Valley’s Joshua Jackson tried to pick up the ball quickly, but couldn’t come up with it cleanly. The Ugly Eagles recovered the fumble and scored later in the drive to push their lead to two touchdowns.

“Punts never work,” Murphy jokingly said. “Generally, nine out of 10 times I’m going to go for a fourth and four, but I’m glad I didn’t because if we would have missed, the game would have been on me.”

Instead, the Ugly Eagles held on to win 28-21.

Murphy said this win hit a little bit different, especially after last week’s slim 19-18 loss to California.

“For the most part we fixed a lot of mistakes that we made last week,” Murphy said.

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The Ugly Eagles struck first as quarterback Brenden Bush connected with his twin brother Alex Bush for a 12-yard touchdown pass to put Clayton Valley up 7-0 with 5:42 left in the first quarter.

San Ramon Valley answered on its next drive, as quarterback Jack Quigley fired a 19-yard touchdown pass to Tanner Salisbury to tie the game up late in the first quarter.

With seconds left in the first half, Clayton Valley went for the hail mary. Bush sailed a ball from 46-yards out and was able to find Cody DeMartini in the end zone to give the Ugly Eagles the 14-7 lead heading into halftime.

“We work on this in practice,” Bush said. “I threw it up to him and Cody did a nice job bringing it down.”

Clayton Valley added one more touchdown in the fourth quarter to extend its lead 21-7, but San Ramon Valley kept fighting.

Quigley tossed his second touchdown of the game to Jackson, to keep the score within reach at 21-14 with 8:59 left.

And even after Clayton Valley’s touchdown following the muffed punt, the Wolves kept battling. Quigley threw his third touchdown of the game to Trevor Scott, but ultimately Clayton Valley secured the victory.

“We didn’t quit,” San Ramon Valley coach Aaron Becker said. “We came back for a late touchdown and gave ourselves an opportunity to get the ball back at the end. I thought we showed a lot of heart there and did some good things.”