Glendale college football can’t stay with Santa Ana
GLENDALE — For the first two quarters, the Glendale Community College football team was able to keep a potent Santa Ana College offense in check Saturday afternoon.
Averaging more than 40 points a game, the Dons were held to just three points during the first half by the Vaqueros defense.
Unfortunately the Vaqueros, they couldn’t maintain that level of success in the second half. The Dons’ offense began to click in the third quarter and Glendale couldn’t stop it in a 45-16 American Metro Conference loss at Sartoris Field.
“We were feeling good at halftime with the way we played on defense in that first half,” said Glendale sophomore defensive back Leon Flintroy, who had two interceptions. “We were able to stop them and we were feeling confident.
“But after halftime we kind of crapped the bed.”
With the score tied at 3 at halftime, Santa Ana (4-3, 3-0 in conference) scored on five of its six possessions of the second half and also had an interception return for a touchdown.
“We just wear down our own defense because we just don’t get enough first downs on offense,” said Glendale coach John Rome, whose team fell to 0-6, 0-2. “And it’s something that I have been saying over and over that we are so young on offense that we have our problems.
“We play well in spots, but we have just had a problem maintaining that for an entire game.”
Burbank High graduate Guy Gibbs got his second straight start at quarterback for the Vaqueros, who were coming off a bye week. The sophomore completed 19 of 38 passes for 171 yards, two touchdowns and one interception.
Sophomore tight end Randell Mincy had four receptions for 73 yards and a 17-yard touchdown and sophomore tight end Ethan Quinn had a three-yard touchdown grab.
Glendale had three interceptions in the opening half, two by Flintroy and one from Cody Taniguchi. But the Vaqueros weren’t able to translate any of the takeaways into points, as they were forced to punt on all three possessions.
After the Dons went up 3-0 on a 21-yard field goal with 2:11 left in the opening quarter, the Vaqueros were finally able to sustain a scoring drive in the waning seconds of the second quarter. Glendale started on its 20-yard line and drove into Santa Ana territory. The drive ended with a 37-yard field goal from sophomore and La Cañada High product Michael Selsor to tie the score at 3.
“I didn’t think that would be the our best scoring drive of the half,” Rome said.
Led by sophomore quarterback Connor Miller (20 of 38 for 313 yards, three touchdowns and three interceptions) and sophomore receiver Devon Jackson (nine catches for 132 yards and one touchdowns), the Dons scored touchdowns on their first two possessions of the third quarter to take a 17-3 lead.
The Vaqueros made it 17-9 with 58 seconds left in the third when Gibbs hooked up with Mincy. The touchdown was set up on a blocked field goal attempt by the Vaqueros, with sophomore Djour Lariviere returning the ball 68 yards.
But Santa Ana came back with 28 straight points to increase its advantage to 45-9.
Gibbs found Quinn with 4:04 left to cap the scoring.
Twitter: @jefftsports
