How to resolve AdBlock issue? 
News
- Details
- Written by: Rich Mellott
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – Rob Ishihara had seen it before: a senior with no football experience coming out for the team.
“It can be hard for them,” the Kelseyville head coach said. “Even if they’re good athletes, there’s an adjustment, certain skills they have to develop.”
When summer drills opened last week, Ishihara welcomed a senior whose only “organized football” experience was an all-girls flag contest last spring between the Kelseyville juniors and seniors.
Crystal Maciel, who had been mulling over the possibility of playing with the boys since that “powder puff” game, decided the day before practice started to give it a go.
“If I didn’t go out, I was afraid I’d regret not taking advantage of the opportunity to play,” she said earlier this week.
She’s not just playing with the boys – she’s mixing it up with them, trying to knock them on their butts before they do the same to her.
You won’t confuse Maciel for the soccer crossovers of the ’70s and ’80s, the girls who helped bust through prep football’s gender barrier as placekickers, a role that rarely subjected them to getting smashed by testosterone-fueled linemen twice their size.
Maciel is a 5-foot-4, 270-pound candidate for lineman who happens to enjoy the contact of the game.
“Overall, I think I’m doing pretty good,” she said before last Wednesday’s practice and after a week-and-a-half of summer workouts.
Ishihara agrees. “Her effort has been great,” he said. “So has her attitude.”
Maciel admits she wasn’t in the kind of shape required to thrive in the heat and intensity of two-a-day workouts the first week of practice. “That’s been the hardest part,” she said.
She also knows she has room for improvement in the technical aspects of blocking and tackling.
But she feels she’s learning fast. Overall, she says, “I’m keeping up (with the boys).”
Maciel got her first real taste of contact at last Tuesday night’s practice, on a play where she was heading down field – and the next thing she knew, she was flat on the ground.
“I didn’t see it coming. But I got up. I was OK with it,” said Maciel, who’s practicing at various positions on both the offensive and defensive lines.
This isn’t her first high school team. She swam at Shasta High as a freshman and played girls soccer last fall at Upper Lake.
Though her organized football experience is limited to the one “powder puff” game, she fondly recalls as a kid playing football with her brother and cousins, and she remembers holding her own in the areas of tackling and overall roughhousing.
It was the flag football game with the girls – and the week of practice that preceded the game – that got Maciel thinking seriously about playing with the boys.
When she approached some assistant coaches on the Kelseyville staff a couple weeks ago about going out for the team, several who had apparently seen her play in the girls game encouraged her to go talk to Ishihara.
“They said I wasn’t afraid of contact,” she said. “They liked that.”
Her friends, including some guys on the team, also encouraged her to come out for the team.
Initially, Ishihara had some reservations about letting her play. But he called her a couple days before summer drills began and invited her to join the team.
According to the National Federation of State High School Associations’ Web site, 1,561 girls played high school football in the United States in 2010, up 17.5 percent from the 2006 season.
In the California high school ranks, 179 girls played football in 2010 (either on freshmen, JV or varsity teams). Statistics for the 2011 season haven’t been released yet.
Rich Mellott can be reached at
- Details
- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
MIDDLETOWN, Calif. – A neighbor is being credited for saving the life of a Middletown man whose home caught fire on Saturday morning.
The fire at the home, located in the 24000 block of Hildebrand Road, was first reported minutes before 10 a.m. Saturday, according to Cal Fire Battalion Chief Mike Wink.
Wink said the home’s resident was unaware that the home was on fire, but that a neighbor riding by on a motorcycle stopped and got into the home to warn him.
The two men and the resident’s two pets were able to get out without injury, according to Wink.
“They got out just in time,” he said.
At the time of the fire the temperature was 92 degrees, with 12 percent humidity, Wink said.
Wink said the two main factors in keeping the fire from spreading into nearby wildland was a lack of any wind and the availability of a lot of local fire resources, with nine volunteers happening to be at the South Lake County Fire Station when the call was dispatched.
Personnel from South Lake County Fire, Cal Fire and Calistoga Fire Department responded, he said.
The residence and three outbuildings were destroyed, said Wink.
Wink said if there had been wind the fire could have gone right up nearby McGuire Peak, potentially sparking a major wildland fire.
The fire was knocked down within 45 minutes, but Wink said firefighters were on scene until 4 p.m., and checked the scene later that night and again on Sunday.
Wink estimated total losses at $200,000.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
- Details
- Written by: Lake County News reports
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Lake County Live!, the music and variety program that debuted in January of this year, will present its eighth production on Sunday, Aug. 26, at the Soper-Reese Community Theatre in Lakeport.
This month, the show will feature the group Majide!, featuring the talents of keyboard player Paul Kemp and vocalist Machiko. Joining them for this performance will be Jim Leonardis on saxophone. They present styles including smooth jazz, blues and a variety of other musical genres.
Also on the venue will be the return of Ear Reverence, the a cappella vocal quartet featuring Valerie Reid, Carol Cole Lewis, Bill Bordisso and Nick Reid. They delighted the audience in January, and have more great songs for you to enjoy on Aug. 26.
“We are continually looking for both new and returning guests who can entertain our audience in the theatre and on the air,” said show creator and host Doug Rhoades. “Our audience continues to grow, so I want to make sure we’re giving them the enjoyment they deserve during the hour they spend with us and the show.”
This month’s show will feature the return of Ladies of the Lake, a visit to Kelseyville, a word from Pet Owners, Operators and Proprietors, and a lot of laughs.
“We try to always make the humor topical, but keep it at about a PG rating,” Rhoades added. “We always want to make people laugh, and never offend. I think we’ve met that goal since the first show.”
Lake County Live! airs at 6 p.m. on Lake County Community Radio KPFZ at 88.1 FM and is also streamed live on the Internet via www.kpfz.org .
Tickets are available at the theater box office at 275 S. Main in Lakeport Fridays from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., at the Travel Center in Lakeport at 1265 S. Main, and online at www.soperreesetheatre.com .
- Details
- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
NORTH COAST, Calif. – A wildland fire complex burning in northern Mendocino County continued to increase in size on Monday.
The Pass Complex grew by more than 400 acres during the course of Monday, reaching 6,015 acres by nighttime, with containment remaining at 10 percent, Cal Fire reported.
The two-fire complex is located along Mendocino Pass Road, 10 miles northeast of Covelo, in both the State Responsibility Area and the Mendocino National Forest. Cal Fire and the US Forest Service have unified command of the incident.
Cal Fire said the Pass Complex was started by lightning.
Burning since Saturday morning, the Pass 1 Fire has burned 6,000 acres, some in the national forest. The Pass 2 Fire, which jumped the fire line and is burning toward Pass 1, has burned 15 acres, Cal Fire reported.
Forty-five residences are threatened. Cal Fire had reported earlier Monday that two outbuildings had been destroyed.
There were 732 fire personnel on scene Monday, as well as 65 engines, 21 fire crews, three airtankers, three helicopters, 14 bulldozers and nine water tenders.
Email Elizabeth Larson at