Finale was an Eagle route!!!

College of the Siskiyous ended its first season under head coach Matt Sayre with its most impressive performance, a 41-0 thrashing of Shasta College Saturday afternoon in Weed.
The Eagle defense stifled the Knights, while the offense rose to the occasion after star running back Alex Gaston was ejected from the game in the first quarter for having spikes on his shoes that were 1/8th inch too long.
Gaston's replacement, freshman Andres Reed, rushed for 86 yards and scored 4 touchdowns.
Sophomore quarterback Travis Newman finished his junior college career in style, completing 23 of 32 pass attempts for 330 yards.
"When Alex went out, everybody had to step it up. It was fun," said Newman, whose short pass to a wide open tight end Jason Zarate turned into a 51 yard touchdown in the first half.
Newman and Reed both praised the offensive line, members of which had their names mentioned during the game by public address announcer Rick Martin.
"I just got a lucky break," said Reed, who had few chances to run with the ball earlier in the season. "We were balanced today; everybody was getting it done."
"We played together," said inside linebacker Ryan Clark. "We've been trying to get a shutout all year. Coach (Phil) Maas is a great defensive coordinator."
Clark said the Eagle defense calls itself The Dungeon, "because we always shut people down."
The Eagles finished the season in the top 3 in the state in defense after allowing Shasta just 59 yards rushing and 74 yards passing.
Defensive lineman Daniel Burnett, who originally came to COS as a quarterback, had 4 quarterback sacks.
Defensive back James Carroway had 2 pass interceptions, giving him 4 for the season, which he returned for a total of 182 yards and 2 touchdowns.
Linebacker Jarred Kuhl brought the Eagles and their fans to a roar when he jolted a Shasta receiver near the Eagle sideline.
"It was a good one to roll out on," said Sayre, whose first Eagle team finished the season
5-5 overall and 2-3 in Mid-Empire Conference play. The Eagles were one win away from making a postseason bowl game. American River, which finished 5-5 and 3-2 in the Mid-Empire Conference, did get a bowl berth.
"Shasta's our biggest rival," Sayre said. "They didn't expect us to beat them that badly."
Defensive lineman Ryan Taylor, the defending state javelin champion and a force throughout the season, said the Eagles went into Saturday's game thinking they could win if they shut down Shasta's running game.
"I wasn't expecting a shutout, but it feels good, definitely," Taylor said.
"We've got a lot of very good players on defense," said Maas, the longtime Siskiyous assistant and former head coach and athletic director. "To play that well the last two weeks of the season says a lot about the players. Maybe we've turned the corner for this football program."
This was the first year in four seasons that the Eagles didn't finish with a losing record.
Maas said learning how to win was part of the process.
The one disappointment from Saturday's game was Gaston's ejection. The 5-foot-6, 177 pound freshman running back from South Carolina had already set single season school records for most carries (198), most touchdowns (18) and most points (108). He needed just 29 yards to break the single season record for rushing yards, which was set at 1,440 in 1996 by Donnie LaBorde.
Eagles coaches said they were told that the Shasta coaches alerted the officials to Gaston's cleats being too long.
He had rushed for 21 yards in the game at that point, and the officials not only ejected him from the game, they assessed a two-game ejection, which the Eagles are appealing.
"He was upset, but he took it better than I would have," Maas said of Gaston, who was ranked No. 3 in the state in rushing prior to Saturday.
Sayre said the Eagles planned to use both the run and pass extensively against the Knights. After Gaston went out, they went with the pass a little more than expected.
Newman made it work, completing 6 passes for 97 yards to Zarate; 4 for 61 yards to Bobby Olive, who also ran a reverse for 25 yards; 3 for 85 yards to Darius Williams; and 2 for 19 yards to tight end Grant Morasci, a
6-foot-6, 250 pound freshman from Albany, OR.
Freshman running back Austin Shoptaw of Roseburg, OR, carried 9 times for 32 yards and one short touchdown on which he sailed over a pile of bodies at the goal line.
Reed and Shoptaw both could have been starters elsewhere, Sayre said, but they were behind Gaston on the depth chart this season.
Sayre said the offensive line had little depth, and the starters - Brandon Reynolds, freshman Chris Stallworth, center Malakai Pekipaki, John Stephens and Garrett Butler - played nearly every down this season.
The Eagles finished the season allowing just 944 rushing yards and 1,275 passing yards, while the Eagle offense gained 1,999 yards rushing and 1,498 yards passing.
Seeing those numbers, Sayre said, "It looks like we should have won more games... We had our goals set higher, but injuries and our pre-conference schedule were tough. And I found out that getting a program from losing to winning is a bigger struggle than I realized. Our coaching staff was fantastic, and the kids, especially the sophomores, figured out what it takes to be winners.

By Steve Gerace