Football: L.A. Jordan suspends five players

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Some might say City Section football teams are undermanned going against Southern Section counterparts that typically have larger athletic budgets, bigger rosters and better facilities.

Los Angeles Jordan will literally be shorthanded on Friday night at Gardena High against Anaheim Esperanza after Bulldogs Coach Elijah Asante suspended five players, including starting cornerback Oscar Riley, for transgressions that included missing practice.

‘We stress obedience and discipline,’ Asante said. ‘That’s bigger than winning the game itself.’

This will be the third consecutive year that Jordan has played Esperanza, and the first two games weren’t pretty. Esperanza won, 63-21, in 2006. The Aztecs prevailed again, 42-18, last season.

‘They murdered us the first two years,’ Asante said.

But the Jordan freshmen and sophomores who were manhandled in those games have matured into juniors and seniors, giving Asante hope that his team can blossom into a big winner. The Bulldogs dropped 35 points on Locke last week in the first half of a 42-15 victory.

Asante knows that Esperanza, which shut down Corona Santiago last week during the second half of a 12-9 victory, will provide a much stiffer test.

‘This game will tell us how much we’ve grown or if we’ve grown at all,’ Asante said. ‘If we prevail, it will be shocking to a lot of people.’

Does Asante include himself in that group?

‘I have never gone into a game thinking we would lose, and I expect to win,’ he said.

--Ben Bolch