The Long Beach City Vikings defeated the Cerritos Falcons 30-14 after a second-half collapse for the Falcons.
In this game, the Falcons’ offensive struggles were exposed as the team was struggling to get the ball downfield.
Despite their struggles, the Falcons were able to compete in the first half of the game.
It started with LBCC scoring on their first drive with the help of an ongoing issue with the Falcons this season and that is penalties.
The Falcons were able to hold off the Vikings on the goal line but two huge penalties giving the Vikings an automatic first downs killed the Falcons chances of stopping them.
Those penalties would help LBCC score on the first drive of the game giving them an early 7-0 lead.
After this, the Falcons’ offense could not get it going, with four straight three-and-out possessions.
As usual, the defense was able to make two huge plays in back-to-back possessions in the second quarter by forcing multiple turnovers helping the offense put up 14 points which gave them a 7-14 lead.
With just a minute and a half left in the first half, the Falcons have shifted all the momentum to their side.
Cerritos was able to force LBCC to punt with plenty of time for the offense to go down the field and stretch the lead out.
The punt returner for the Falcons would end up muffing the punt which led to a touchdown pass tying the game at half for LBCC.
From there on the special teams continued to make mistake after mistake.
Special teams cost the team 17 points with all their mistakes and Coach Grosfeld knew and explained what went wrong with them.
“I don’t ever put it on the kids because it’s on us ultimately, but I don’t drop a ball, you know what I mean, they are—they are young men they have to take responsibility a little,” Grosfeld said.
“Dropping balls and fumbling is just, the coaches don’t do that we put them in a position to make plays and he fumbles another one and it’s our fault for leaving guys in there but we’ll clean it up,” Grosfeld explained, “we got a good football team, we’re gonna be fine.”
“We win the next five games we win the conference, they’re (LBCC) not gonna win out there’s no way they win out, they’re definitely gonna lose a couple games, so we’re 3-2 we’ll get it straight, we’ll get it straight for sure.”
The Falcons would fumble on the kickoff return to start the second half only leading to a field goal but then on the next Falcons possession, LBCC blocked a punt and took it to the house for a 52-yard touchdown and this was it for the Falcons.
The second half was a nightmare, the special teams made crucial mistakes which ultimately cost them the game.
But the offense had opportunity after opportunity to put points on the board to make it a game but continuously failed to do so.
For the majority of the season so far it has felt like the offense has been too reliant on the defense to make a big play for them and that has become a problem, especially in this game.
It starts becoming an issue when the offense isn’t able to sustain a drive longer than two minutes in the second half which leaves the defense on the field for too long. Leaving the defense to feel exhausted.
The offense was only able to put up a total of 93 yards in the second half which is just inexcusable.
If the defense wasn’t able to make a big play the offense would struggle on every possession.
