American River College’s defense had a tough night as it allowed 693 yards in the team’s 51-36 loss to City College of San Francisco, dropping the team to 2-1 on the season.
According to Coach Jon Osterhout, the Beavers had several opportunities to win the game, but failed to capitalize on those key moments.
“I felt like we continued to fight for all four quarters; we just weren’t opportunistic,” Osterhout said.
In the first quarter, San Francisco came out with a nine-play opening drive that ended in a 17-yard touchdown pass.
A fumble by San Francisco allowed ARC to answer back with a 67-yard pass from quarterback Griffin Dahn to wide receiver Damen Wheeler Jr., which led to a 1-yard touchdown run by Dahn.
In the second quarter, San Francisco piled it on with three more touchdowns, while ARC only scored one.
At the start of the second half, San Francisco again came out and scored a touchdown on its opening drive.
Wheeler Jr. answered back for ARC with a 97-yard kickoff return on the ensuing kickoff, but in the end, the San Francisco’s offense was too much to overcome for the Beavers. The Rams quarterback Lavell McCullers had 566 yards and eight total touchdowns.
While the offense had 312 yards of total offense, the Beavers had a tough time finding a rhythm and miscommunication led to nine penalties of 89 yards.
ARC quarterback Griffin Dahn said the loss had more to do with the Beavers beating themselves than it did with San Francisco doing “anything special.”
“They played good assignment based football, give them credit for playing a great game against us, but there are a lot of things to improve on offensively,” Dahn said.
ARC defensive back Sammie Gray went further and said, “they weren’t better than us; we just didn’t do our job – period.”
Osterhout told the team in the huddle after the game to keep a positive mindset, and to move on and get ready for the next game.
“We just get back to the drawing board, the sun will come up tomorrow morning we will be fine,” Osterhout said. “They are the defending national champions for a reason … we left too many plays on the field and you cannot do that against this kind of opponent.”
The Beavers will travel to Fresno this Saturday to play Fresno City College at 6 p.m.
