Roadrunners can't hang with Mt. San Jacinto College, suffer first conference loss
College of the Desert's football team came into Saturday's game against Mt. San Jacinto College undefeated in American Mountain League play with a chance to secure first place and a bowl game.
But Mt. San Jacinto, last year's conference winners, proved to be too much for the Roadrunners, who lost 63-14.
The Roadrunners dropped to 6-2 overall and 2-1 in American Mountain League play, while the Eagles improved to 7-1 and 3-0.
"You get down 36-14 going into the half, it's real tough to try and come back," said COD head coach Jack Steptoe. "I just thought they were better prepared and played at a higher level than we did. You play like you practice. We didn't have the best week of practice, and this was the outcome. We'll recover, we'll get back to the drawing board and get back to doing the things we do real well. We'll be fine."
The Eagles scored 21 unanswered points in the first quarter and entered halftime with a 36-14 lead. The second half was more of the same as the Eagles scored another 27 points while the Roadrunners were shut out.
While COD most likely will not win the conference, it can still qualify for a bowl game. The Roadrunners will have to win their final two games to make that happen.
"We're gonna look past this game and look toward playing Grossmont at home next week," Steptoe said. "We have to fix some things up and execute on both sides of the ball. We can hang with anyone, things just didn't go our way this week."
What's next?
COD (6-2, 2-1) plays at home against Grossmont at 1 p.m. Saturday.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: COD football drops first conference game against Mt. San Jacinto
