City College’s football team won its home opener in a convincing fashion Saturday afternoon after beating West L.A. by a score of 48-25.
The Vaqueros saw the end zone first after sophomore running back Cedric Cooper ran the ball in from 22 yards out of the Wildcat formation. Cooper averaged 13.5 yards per carry throughout the rest of the game.
Following City College’s touchdown, West L.A. was steadily driving down the field in its first series of offense, until they were stopped in the red zone after having their field goal blocked by Vaquero freshman Tony Anderson.
The Vaquero’s special teams played an exceptional game, blocking a total of two field goals and holding the Wildcats to only 60 total yards of both kick and punt returns.
Offensively the City College played at a rapid pace and rarely huddled after each play, quickly wearing down West LA’s defense.
“We didn’t have one turnover on offense,” said Head Coach Craig Moropoulos. “Now that’s the recipe to winning a football game.”
Quarterbacks Noah Holle and Joshua Lindman combined for 244 passing yards and four touchdowns, while only eight passes were thrown incomplete.
“It’s a situation where those two guys are very even,” said Moropoulos. “It’s almost like they’re identical.”.
Elijah Cunningham led the Vaqueros wide receiver core with four catches for 93 yards and two touchdowns, while tight end Jacob Ortale and receiver Jason-Matthew Sharsh both scored a touchdown, which helped their team to a much needed victory.
“I didn’t even know I scored the first one, actually. I just caught the ball,” said Cunningham. “They were good. They were just coming in so much for run support, they were leaving it wide open for any pass play.”
Defensively the Vaqueros could not find their groove. Wildcat quarterback Jorge Reyna threw for over 400 yards and tacked on 85 more rushing yards. The secondary allowed Reyna to throw 50 completed passes and four touchdowns.
“We just have to do a better job of angle-tackling and getting people down,” said Moropoulos. “Once you let them loose, we kind of lost people in the secondary and that hurts.”
The Vaqueros will face LA Southwest at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 17 at City College.
