In a game that saw 35 penalties called, the Lancers football team couldn’t capitalize on the El Camino Warriors’ mishandling of the ball and lost its 13th straight home game Saturday night. The final score was 37-20.
“This was a wake up game,” said freshman quarterback Dejon Williams, who finished the game with 227 passing yards, one touchdown pass and a mean black eye from having his helmet knocked off in the second quarter.
“It will help us bounce back and we’ll get back out there and play better next game,” Williams said.
For the Lancers, the momentum looked to be completely on their side late in the fourth quarter. PCC had just scored back-to-back touchdowns, one from wide receiver Ahmad Springer and the other from Ricky Blair, and it looked like the Lancer lead would hold going into half time.
“We let our guard down and they exploited that,” Blair said.
Instead, Warriors wide receiver Devante Jenkins caught an 18-yard touchdown pass with 27 seconds left in the half, making it 20-14. The Lancers would never recover.
“We came out of half time slow,” Blair said. “We sort of gave up towards the end of the game.”
Both teams made sloppy mistakes and the Warriors piled up 20 penalties to the Lancers’ 15. The total loss of yardage on penalties for both teams equaled 333 yards, or more than the length of three football fields.
The last time PCC won on home turf was in 2011. The Lancers also haven’t beaten El Camino since 2004.
A bright spot for PCC going forward could be the play of Springer. Springer had two touchdowns, one of which he ran in himself in his one-play quarterback stint, and added 77 yards receiving.
“[Springer] is one of the few returning sophomores,” Head Coach Fred Fimbres said. “He played as well as we know he can play. He’s a captain on and off the field. It hurt us that he wasn’t healthy last season, but he should really help our offensive line this year.”
There were occasional good plays in Saturday’s game and with Williams as quarterback this season, having weapons like Springer and Blair to throw to, it might just take a few more practices to get things right for the Lancers, Fimbres said.
PCC travels to Grossmont College Saturday to face the Griffins at 3 p.m.
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