Kishawn Holmes led the way for the Cerritos’ rushers as he rushed for 135 yards on 11 carries and a touchdown.
Running back by committee was an understatement for the Falcons as they used four rushers in order to tally up 217 yards and three touchdowns en route to the 33-0 dismantling of the Lancers as they won their first home game of the season.
“It’s the team’s success and the [offensive] line’s success, I just get put into positions to make things happen,” Holmes said.
Unlike majority of the season thus far three of the four touchdowns scored on the night was scored on rushing plays.
Running backs Robert Gordon and Lamarr Crowder both found the end zone on two separate occasions.
“It was more than an opportunity for everybody to eat, all the running backs ate,” Holmes stated. “That [also] made the passing game open up a little bit.”
Following the game quarterback Jimmy Walker admitted the game wasn’t his best work after a four fumble night.
“It was a little bit of luck and the defense playing really well tonight,” Walker admitted.
Walker finished with 198 yards on 10 of 21 completions and one touchdown.
This also marked the first game this season that Walker did not throw an interception.
Walker wasn’t the only person who felt the team dodged multiple bullets.
Head coach Frank Mazzotta also weighed in on the matter, “The defense rose to the [occasion], [the fumbles] didn’t hurt us we played good enough defense to make up for it.”
Cerritos fumbled the ball a total of 10 times however, only relinquished possession four times.
The team has made it a primary mission throughout the season to pick up the slack if one portion of the team is struggling.
Defensive tackle David Fangupo touched on that following the big defense statement.
“Like I tell my defense every week if we play to our potential it doesn’t really matter how anybody on the field plays,” he said. “We really showed up tonight, there are still some things we could clean up.”
Cerritos was able to hold Pasadena City to zero points for the second time this year.
Fangupo, despite his injury, was a big factor on the defensive end, tallying two tackles, one sack, a pass deflection and even added an interception.
“It wasn’t even me, my teammates around me were really the ones that made me get [that] play,” Fangupo added. “I should’ve scored, but it is what it is, we’ll take what we can get.”
The Falcons were able to get away with several mistakes, such as the fumbles.
One of the fumbles came at the back end of a 87-yard punt return, in which the ball was dropped prior to crossing the goal line.
“I feel that sometimes you play like the people you play. We got a little sloppy. And when you’re playing a team you should beat, which we should beat them, we let up and got a little sloppy,” Mazzotta acknowledged.
The team was able to run its season record up to 4-1 as it now turn its attention to next week, the Homecoming game against rival El Camino Warriors.
