American River College running back, Evyn Holtz dodges the Sacramento City College defence in the first quarter of the game on Sept. 1, 2018. (Photo by Jennah Booth)

On a hot, sunny Saturday, American River College’s football team quarterback Jacob Cruz shone as he led his team over Sacramento City College, 28-14.

Cruz went 13 for 28 in passing attempts for 182 yards in the game on Sept. 1, with two touchdowns and one interception; he also rushed for 10 yards, but said he never felt quite comfortable in the pocket.

“To be honest, I thought we would have done a little better, we were a little off first game of the season,” Cruz said. “We were a little off offensive-wise, missed a few plays, just didn’t keep it rolling but we’ll figure that out.”

Running back Evyn Holtz helped the offense with 45 rushing yards and two touchdowns, both at the Sacramento City one yard line. Wide receiver Blake Martin led the team in receiving with two catches for 34 yards.

Head coach Jon Osterhout started off his year with a win and said he was proud of his defense when he spoke to them in the team huddle after the game.

“I thought the defense played well, extremely opportunistic, we had the big pick and ran it back down into the red zone and then we were able to capitalize and get it in,” Osterhout said. “And the strip sack there at the end where we knocked the ball out was opportunistic and did a great job on the ball and getting it back to our offense.”

The ARC defense performed well during the game as its players got three turnovers from Sacramento City through one interception and two strip sacks by Defensive End Hunter Cordova and Linebacker Jake Bellecci, which caused fumbles recovered by ARC. Defensive back Garrett Chapman got the interception early in the second quarter.

“I saw him overthrow his tight end so I knew, right when I got to get it, I got to make a play and get as deep as I can for my offense to score,” Chapman said. “We competed every single play, hard-nosed football that’s what it was, we knew that’s what it was going to be.”

Osterhout says he is looking forward to next weekend’s game at Laney College.

“We got a tough opponent at Laney College who we had here in the first round of playoffs,” he said. “We are not very familiar with them outside of playing them last year, we hadn’t been to that environment and we’re on a short week because we’ll play Friday night. We’re just gonna prepare like we always do and we’ll be ready, that’s for sure.”