Bakersfield Defense Dominates Moorpark : Potato Bowl: Raiders make six turnovers and undefeated season unravels in 30-19 rout.

A man wearing an eight-foot high potato suit topped by a gold-tassled fez highlighted the pregame festivities of Saturday’s 41st Potato Bowl game. The effort unofficially earned the man first place in the How Goofy Can a Person Look? contest.

Eleven people tied for second place.

They came dressed as the Moorpark College offense.

Attempting to become the only team in the school’s 25-year football history to turn in an undefeated season, the Raiders stumbled badly. And Bakersfield College was more than willing to step aside and watch Moorpark fall, 30-19, in a rout in which Moorpark scored two meaningless touchdowns in the final minute.

Moorpark’s offense gave the ball away six times, three on fumbles and three on interceptions. And when the Raiders weren’t giving the game away, Bakersfield was taking it, crashing a dominant defensive line against the Raiders all day and harassing Moorpark quarterback Corey Tucker.

“They took everything away from us,” Tucker said. “They took the option play from us early and took everything else away right after that.

“When I got flushed out of the pocket, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just running. Meaningless running.”

Gil Carrillo, Moorpark’s running back who was the WSC’s second-leading rusher this season, fared only slightly better than Tucker. Carrillo carried 12 times for 85 yards, but 44 of them came on one play in the third quarter.

Carrillo fumbled the ball away once and Harold Boudreaux lost it twice, the first one on the third play of the game. Bakersfield turned that early miscue into a touchdown for a 7-0 lead, and the thrashing was under way.

Tucker threw two interceptions and his final-minute replacement, Todd Preston, lofted another wobbler that was picked off, although Preston did throw the two last-minute touchdown passes that made the score seem respectable.

But the game wasn’t close.

“We had a case of the turnovers, and when you do that you don’t win,” Moorpark Coach Jim Bittner said. “We hurt ourselves badly, but that was the toughest defense we’ve faced in the last two or three years. Bakersfield was spectacular.”

The Renegades (9-1-1) forced Moorpark (also 9-1-1) out of its ball-control offense by taking a 10-0 lead in the first quarter on a 21-yard touchdown pass from Carl Dean to Tony Morgan and a 25-yard field goal by Bobby Rocha. When Bakersfield made it 17-0 just 4 minutes 38 seconds into the second quarter, Moorpark was forced to pass.

“We’re not a good catch-up team,” Bittner said. “We don’t play that game well at all. We need to control the ball, but we had pass-blocking problems early and Corey Tucker lost his concentration, I think, and began running out of the pocket too early.”

Tucker completed five of 11 passes for 128 yards and scored on a 12-yard run in the second quarter, but the final numbers showed him running with the ball 14 times for minus-15 yards.

Carrillo said his team was just overwhelmed.

“The defense filled up the holes at the line all day,” he said. “And then they gang-tackled me every time. We made a whole lot of mistakes. Fumbles, interceptions and missed blocks. We can’t expect to win when we play like that.”

On offense, Bakersfield was nearly as dominant. Dean passed for a modest 140 yards but didn’t throw an interception and had two touchdown passes. Morgan caught both scoring passes.

And then there was David Dunn, a 205-pound receiver who has had Division I scouts driving to Bakersfield all season. Dunn caught six passes for 61 yards. He rushed three times for 32 yards. He also drilled a perfect 39-yard strike to Morgan in the end zone to give Bakersfield a 30-7 lead in the fourth quarter.

“I didn’t know he could do that,” Bittner said of Dunn. “I knew he could run and I knew he could catch. He just ran wild on us. He was a notch above anybody else on the field. He was a man playing a kid’s game.”

The touchdown pass from Dunn came one play after cornerback Frank Clark had intercepted the second Tucker pass of the day. The score put the game away.

Moorpark answered with too little too late. Backup quarterback Preston threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Nick Estrada with 37 seconds left and, after Moorpark recovered an onside kick, threw a 13-yard scoring pass to Tim Blakeley with 27 seconds remaining.

The teams played to a 10-10 tie in October, but Bakersfield implied that that game was a fluke.

“I think we should have beaten them by 14 or 17 points that night,” barked Renegade Coach Carl Bowser in a raucous Bakersfield locker room.

“Jim Bittner runs a fine, class program down there. But for some reason, this year his players didn’t respect us. They talked a lot during and after that first game and they talked a lot during this game. Let’s just say they kept our players excited all day.

“They probably shouldn’t have done that.”