Ventura College football team emerges from 6-team tie to earn another playoff berth
The Ventura College football team’s latest conference championship may be its most unlikely.
The Pirates took care of their business Saturday night at East Los Angeles College and other SCFA Northern Conference results broke their way, allowing them to emerge from a six-way muddle to return to the Southern California playoffs for the fourth time in five seasons.
“It’s pretty unlikely when you start 0-2 and you win it outright (on a tiebreaker),” Ventura College coach Steve Mooshagian said. “That makes it pretty special.”
Quarterback Sam Marquez (Oxnard High) threw two touchdown passes to Chris Reaves, Jesse Valenzuela (Camarillo High) ran for 140 yards and a touchdown on 13 carries and LJ Harm kicked two field goals as VC held off host East L.A., 27-21, in its regular-season finale.
“It’s a pretty resilient group,” said Mooshagian, who was away for the team for five weeks during the season during an on-campus personnel investigation. “They just learned to deal with adversity.”
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VC (7-3) entered the final day of the regular season in a rare six-way tie for first place in the SCFA Northern Conference.
The win, combined with Allan Hancock College’s 13-7 win over Bakersfield College and College of the Canyons’ 31-24 win over visiting Long Beach City College, gave the Pirates the exact series of results needed to win the playoff berth on a head-to-head tiebreaker.
VC (7-3) finished atop the SCFA Northern standings with Hancock (5-5) and Canyons (5-5) at 3-2, but beat both head to head. The Pirates beat visiting Hancock, 36-31, on Oct. 29 and topped visiting Canyons, 23-13, on Nov. 5.
The postseason pairings will be announced Monday by the Southern California Football Association.
Mooshagian, who is on the selection committee, expects VC to be seeded No. 4 in the playoffs and visit top-seeded Riverside (10-0) in the Southern California semifinals on Nov. 24.
A year ago, VC was the undefeated No. 1 seed, but was upset by No. 4 Riverside 41-21 at home in the semifinals.
“We played them last year and the tables were flipped,” Mooshagian said. “Now we get to go there and get a shot at redemption.”
VC jumped out to a 17-0 lead in the first half.
Marquez hit Reaves with a 7-yard TD pass on the Pirates’ first possession. Valenzuela sprinted to a 72-yard TD run less than four minutes later. Harm followed with a 36-yard field goal.
After East L.A. returned the subsequent squib kick for an 88-yard TD, Marquez responded with a 60-yard scoring strike to Reaves pushed it to 24-7 with 8:52 left in the first half.
East L.A. scored twice in the third quarter to pull within one score for the final 25 minutes.
“We gave up two big plays,” Mooshagian said. “We tried to squib a kick and they ran it back and they scored on a couple missed tackles on a short pass.”
But East L.A. only managed one drive into VC territory the rest of the night, when it turned the ball over on downs on the Ventura 20 with two minutes to play.
“We had to hold on,” Mooshagian said. “I don’t know if it’s a blueprint. For some crazy reason it’s been the story of the last three weeks. I think we want to give fans their money’s worth.”
Linebacker Drew Carter (Camarillo High) had 11 tackles, two sacks and a pass breakup, linebacker Adrian Soracco finished with 11 tackles and defensive end Angelo Jewell had six tackles and a forced fumble to lead the VC defense.
Joe Curley covers high school, collegiate and professional football for The Star. He can be reached at joe.curley@vcstar.com. For more coverage of local college sports, follow @vcscolleges on Twitter and Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: VC football emerges from six-team tie to earn playoff berth
