Victor Valley College football drops third straight to start the season
The Victor Valley College football team hosted Antelope Valley College at Ray Moore Stadium on Saturday night with both teams looking for a first win of the season.
After 60 minutes of physical play, the Marauders finally got in the win column with a 24-7 victory thanks to some missed opportunities for the Rams.
The Marauders executed in key moments to secure the win but VVC never stopped fighting and could have flipped the outcome if several key moments went the team’s way.
Head coach Artie Allen acknowledged that the final score was not indicative of the competitiveness of the game and echoed that things will turn around for the Rams moving forward.
“This is a tough group of young men and we’re going to get better and we will win some ball games, there is no doubt in my mind about that,” Allen said. “But you know, the score is the score and at the end of the day we didn’t get it done.”
The Marauders jumped out to a 14-0 lead in the second quarter after a slow start offensively for Victor Valley. The Rams then kicked things into gear and drove down the entire length of the field at the end of the second quarter.
Faced with a fourth and two from the four-yard-line, VVC called an inside hand-off that was stuffed behind the line of scrimmage. Instead of putting seven points on the board, the Rams turned the ball over on downs just before halftime.
After forcing a three-and-out to start the second half, the Rams were yet again in field-goal range from the 21-yard-line. Despite going with the wind, the Rams were unable to make the 38-yard attempt, leaving three more points on the board.
The Rams eventually got on the board with a 27-yard touchdown pass from Granite Hills graduate Tyler Karen to Matthew Lowe, a Serrano grad.
Following the touchdown, two straight VVC drives ended on incompletions that were inches from being caught.
A fumble late in the fourth quarter gave AVC great starting field position on VVC’s 18. Two plays into the drive, Kijante Figures took a jet-sweep and juked down the sideline to punch in the touchdown and effectively put the game on ice.
“You can’t really see tempo on film but at the end of the day, I think our defense played well for the most part. We made a couple of mistakes but I am proud of the way the defense played today,” Allen said.
The Rams move to 0-3 on the season with the loss and have been outscored 93-34 by their opponents. The slow start is not deterring Allen, who has experienced something similar in his coaching career in the High Desert.
In the post-game huddle, Allen recalled his season with Oak Hills in 2015 as the offensive coordinator. The Bulldogs began that season with a 1-5 record, losing five games in a row. Oak Hills then ran the gauntlet, going on to beat Serrano in the CIF-Southern Section Eastern Division Championship that season.
Allen used that postgame story in the huddle to express that they can get out of this 0-3 rut.
“This is a group of fighters. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’re going to continue to fight and it’s going to come out on the right side here pretty soon,” Allen said.
The Rams are back in action Sept. 24 at LA Pierce College.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Victor Valley College football drops third straight to start the season
