Victor Valley College's season comes to an end with a 48-21 loss
The Victor Valley Football team did not get the kind of ending it was hoping for in Saturday’s season finale at Ray Moore Stadium.
The Rams fell to College of the Desert 48-21, failing to finish the season at .500. The Rams wrapped up the season with a 4-6 record.
After an 0-3 start to the season, the Rams won three of their next four games to potentially put the team in position for a bowl game.
That is when adversity struck Victor Valley College, which carried into the season finale.
“We got a tough group of guys here,” head coach Artie Allen said. “We’re undermanned, we finished the season with five offensive linemen and for five games those guys were able to finish. That is just one example of a lot of different areas where we had to deal with toughness.”
The Saturday matinee game got off to a very quick start. Only two plays in, College of the Desert got on the board with a 78-yard touchdown pass to Kevin Johnson. Victor Valley College swiftly responded with a touchdown on its second play — a 42-yard touchdown pass from Tyler Karen, a Granite Hills graduate, to Omari McCullough, an Adelanto graduate.
But the Rams struggled to keep up with the Roadrunners’ offense after that.
Johnson scored his second receiving touchdown shortly after on a 29-yard slant pass from quarterback Cesar Vela. College of the Desert went on to score another 28 unanswered points, giving the team a hefty 42-7 lead in the third quarter.
Vela completed 14 of 21 passes for 231 yards with five passing touchdowns. Johnson scored a third touchdown in the third quarter on his fourth catch of the game.
Victor Valley was able to finish the season on a positive note. With two minutes remaining, sophomore running back Kenyard Edwards Jr., an Apple Valley graduate, finished his VVC career with a 47-yard rushing touchdown that included a bone-shattering hit on a Roadrunner defender in front of the end zone.
Edwards is one of several Victor Valley players that will continue his playing career at a higher level of college after this season.
“Cameron Stevens got multiple Division 1 offers, Adrian Rodriguez is a linebacker that has Morehead State and a couple of other schools looking at him. Milan Nadzakov, our offensive lineman, also has a couple of Division 1 offers. KJ Edwards is getting looked at by a lot of people. Hosia Stokes is another that has a couple of offers going on,” Allen said. “The thing that I am most proud of is that they are all going to graduate.”
The focus for Allen and the Rams now turns to the recruitment cycle. While the team improved from last year, the second-year head coach candidly spoke about the hurdles that he and the team had to overcome in the past.
“We got a late start being that I didn’t get the job fully until June (2021). There was a lot of uncertainty about what was going to happen with the program so I think that hurt us a little bit.”
The High Desert offers a rich player pool of talented football players that could extend their playing careers at Victor Valley College. Allen recognizes this and has a simple message for High Desert football players looking to play at the collegiate level.
“We want them all, I’ll tell you that,” Allen said. “We want to start with getting many High Desert kids to understand that if they come here then the way these games will go would be a lot different. If they stop going down the hill and going to other schools then this school will be where it needs to be.”
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Victor Valley College's season comes to an end with a 48-21 loss
