PONY Bowl to Become Two-Game Affair; OCC and Saddleback May Receive Bids

The PONY Bowl selection committee will extend bids to four colleges, and there will be two games instead of one, game manager Keith Calkins said Saturday.

The committee is expected to invite South Coast Conference champion El Camino (9-0) and Central Valley Conference champion Taft (10-0), and extend tentative bids to Orange Coast (8-1) and Saddleback (7-2), which are tied for first in the Mission Conference with one game left. Both teams would need to win their final games this Saturday to earn berths.

The games would be called the PONY Bowl Classic and played Dec. 5 at 1 and 7:30 p.m. at Orange Coast College.

But what teams play and when have yet to be determined. If El Camino, the top-ranked team in Southern California, defeats Golden West Saturday to end with a 10-0 record, it is expected that El Camino will play Taft at 7:30 p.m.

Taft is the top-ranked team in the state and the nation in the J. C. Grid-Wire poll. El Camino is ranked fourth in the nation.

A meeting between OCC and Saddleback would be the teams’ second this season. OCC defeated Saddleback, 42-28, Oct. 3.