American River College’s championship hopes took a hit on Saturday as they suffered their second defeat of the year after a 21-14 double overtime loss to fourth ranked Butte College.
ARC started the first overtime period with the ball and moved the ball 15 yards before kicker Max O’Rourke had his field goal attempt blocked by the Roadrunners defense.
Butte didn’t fair much better, losing seven yards on three plays before turning the ball over on downs to end first overtime.
The Roadrunners started the second overtime possession with the ball and capped off a four play drive with a 10 yard rush from running back Martin Fleming to give Butte a 21-14 lead.
With ARC needing to score a touchdown to tie, Guillen threw the ball into the endzone for wide receiver Lee Reed before Butte defensive back Jalil Crapps jumped up and made a game ending interception to hand ARC only their second loss on the season.
Guillen said that he has to work on his performance following a game where he threw four interceptions.
“I gotta get better, and make better reads. I will go back and look at the film and improve to put my team in a better position next time,” Guillen said.
Coach Jon Osterhout agreed saying that multiple turnovers is not part of a championship team.
“Inniefiency managing the football,” Osterhout said. “We had five turnovers at the quarterback position and you can’t do that if you expect to win the championship.”
“We’ll find out in this coming week what the resolve of this team is.”
Butte finished with only seven yards passing, but recorded a massive 332 rushing yards, compared to ARC’s 157.
The Beavers, who had entered on a five game winning streak, found themselves unable to stifle Butte’s run game early on, allowing the Roadrunners to jump out to an early lead after a 27 yard rush by quarterback Clayton Welch.
Defensive lineman Anthony Luke said that overcoming tough challenges is something the team has to do.
“Overcoming adversity is all we have done all season so we just gotta go back watch film and be ready for next week,” Luke said. “Next week is a must win game for us”
“I feel like this loss was a good learning tool to prepare us for the upcoming games ahead,” Luke said. “We will see Butte again.”
The final game of the regular season is Saturday against Sierra College.
