El Camino Is Out for Revenge at Riverside : Community colleges: Warriors want to avenge loss in last year’s Orange County Bowl.

Before falling to Long Beach City College last week, Riverside had not lost a football game since 1988. A four-yard touchdown pass with five seconds left in the game gave Long Beach the 30-28 upset over the fourth-ranked Tigers. The loss dropped Riverside to No. 14 in the JC Athletic Bureau state rankings.

“(Long Beach) snapped a 13-game winning streak, but we don’t have much sympathy for (Riverside) because they’ve spent the last couple of weeks preparing for us,” El Camino Coach John Featherstone said.

The Warriors (4-0 overall, 2-0 in the Mission Conference), ranked No. 1 nationally by the JC Grid-Wire, will travel to Riverside (2-1, 1-1) for Saturday’s 7 p.m. game. El Camino doesn’t exactly have fond memories of Riverside.

The Tigers handed the Warriors their only loss last season in the Orange County Bowl. Not only did it tarnish the El Camino’s perfect record, it prevented the Warriors from winning the mythical national championship.

“Offensively they’re as strong as they were last year,” Featherstone said. “We expect a tremendously hard-fought game. But we can’t get too hyped up for this team because we face two tough ones after this one. We can’t be so hyped up that we waste ourselves for the following week.”

El Camino is one of three undefeated teams in the 16-member Mission Conference. The Warriors’ balanced offense averages 467 yards a game. Sophomore quarterback Rod Harvey has completed 65% of his passes for 938 yards and eight touchdowns.

Warrior running back Anthony Daigle leads the conference in scoring (11 touchdowns) and rushing (141 yards a game). The 6-foot-1, 190-pound freshman had four touchdowns in last week’s victory over Rancho Santiago.

Riverside’s top running back, John Peoples, is questionable for the game. The sophomore, who averages 122 yards a game, missed the fourth quarter of last week’s game with a shoulder injury. His absence would hurt the Tiger offense, which has rushed for 916 of its 1,123 yards.

Freshmen Jack Manu and Greg Pfunder split time at quarterback for Riverside. Pfunder, a redshirt freshman, sees most of the playing time and has completed nine of 21 pass attempts for 139 yards.

Riverside’s victories are over Citrus and Palomar.

“We’re looking forward to traveling,” Featherstone said. “We’ve always been a good traveling team.”

After a disappointing road loss to Pierce, Harbor Coach Don Weems is glad to be home for Saturday’s Western State Conference game against Santa Monica at 7:30 p.m.

The Seahawks are 2-1 after falling, 27-12, to Pierce. Harbor has home victories over Victor Valley and L.A. Southwest. Weems, a former assistant at Santa Monica, hopes his team can keep up with the Corsairs. Last year the Seahawks took a 40-13 beating at Santa Monica.

“I certainly hope to be more competitive than we were last week,” Weems said. “This is a big game and we should be a little more relaxed because we’re at home.”

Santa Monica dropped out of the JC Athletic Bureau’s top 20 after last week’s 44-38 loss to Moorpark. The Corsairs are 2-1 and 1-1. They have victories over Compton and Saddleback.

After losing two in a row, L.A. Southwest (1-2, 0-1) badly needs a victory, but it will be tough on Saturday when the Cougars go to Moorpark for a 1 p.m. WSC game.

Moorpark is undefeated and ranked fifth in the state by the JC Athletic Bureau. The Raiders are 3-0 after last week’s victory over Santa Monica. Moorpark also has victories over L.A. Valley and East L.A.

Southwest’s only victory was against Rio Hondo on Sept. 8. The Cougars fell to Harbor, 21-7, on the road and last week they lost at home to Glendale, 21-12.