The Falcons suffered a blowing defeat on homecoming at the hands of the Citrus College Owls on Oct. 21, losing it by a score of 26-31.
Cerritos College’s offense struggled to get points on the board early on, only scoring seven points in the first and second quarters.
Citrus College’s first drive of the game ended in a fumble from Koy Riggen and was recovered by Cerritos as the Falcons took over the ball on Citrus’ 20-yard line which led to a Falcons touchdown.
The Owls would then fumble the ball again on the drive after the Cerritos touchdown with the Falcons recovering the ball.
The Falcons started the drive also with a fumble which was recovered by Cerritos but resulted in a team safety giving the Owls an easy two points.
After the fumble, Cerritos lost all momentum and couldn’t get anything going offensively or defensively allowing the Owls to score 31 points in just two quarters.
The tide seemed to turn for Cerritos in the third quarter however when all the chirping and trash-talking Citrus College directed towards Cerritos lit a fire under them.
After not being able to score since the first quarter the Falcons went on a run not allowing the Owls to score once in the second half.
The Falcons started the third quarter with a drive that ended in a touchdown from, running back, Cheo Medina who rushed two yards into the endzone to make it 13-31 Owls.
Inching closer Cerritos scored two more touchdowns, one in the third quarter and one in the fourth, bringing them within only five points of tying the game.
With the crowd getting more and more into the game the animosity between both teams turned up as the Falcons could feel a win within reach and the Owls felt the game slipping away from their hands.
On the second to last drive of the game for Cerritos, Falcons quarterback Andre Lampley threw a pass to, wide receiver, Michael Bruner in the endzone that would end up being dropped, failing to secure what could’ve been the game-winning touchdown for Cerritos.
The game turned into a thriller late as the Falcons scored 19 unanswered points, but it was too little too late for the Falcons.
Although the comeback was short the offense showed signs of life in the second half where they scored 19 of their 26 points in quarters three and four.
After the game was over a scuffle broke out in the middle of the field with players from both sides were yelling, pushing and shoving each other.
Coach Grosfeld spoke on Citrus College’s sportsmanship and constant trash-talking which he was not happy about.
“They were horrible, they were like that the whole game and then the official said it the entire game to me and then he says our guys are doing it after and that’s totally wrong because the officials never said one word to me, these guys (Citrus College) act like clowns,” Grosfeld said.
Coach Grosfeld then explained what has been frustrating for them through the season so far, “What’s frustrating is we’ve lost 12 guys this season due to injuries, we don’t make excuses but when you do that to a football team that’s really really hard.”
“I’m proud as heck being down 31-7 and coming back and doing what we did that’s huge, it’s absolutely huge, so it shows a lot of character, that stuff at the end of the game is all them, their guys run their mouths and do that stuff.”
“So, we showed what kind of team we are in the second half, we’re a much better team and we’ll win the next three games, get into a bowl game and we’ll be happy about it,” Grosfeld explained.
Cerritos will take on the San Bernardino Valley Wolverines next on Oct. 28 as the Falcons’ hopes of winning a fifth straight Western State Bowl game get slimmer and slimmer.
Deverick • Oct 25, 2023 at 3:07 pm
What an amazing game great second half by the Falcons very proud of their effort team work and the coaching staff making adjustments a missed call on the punter knee touching down and unfortunately a passed that fail to the turf this game gave you the thrill of victory and the heart break of defeat good game