Trailing behind at halftime, powerhouse EC found itself in a hole, because for the first time in the season the Warriors were not ahead in the game.
Despite EC being down 13-7 at halftime, the Warriors (6-0) outscored the Panthers 17-0 in the second half en route to a 24-13 road win on Saturday night at Grigsby Field.
“Well it was different; we weren’t use to being behind at halftime but I told the guys during the halftime break that I had a strong belief in them,” coach John Featherstone said. “That they would come back and win the game and that is exactly what they did.”
Wide receiver Andre Buford’s 52-yard punt return started an EC drive that set the stage for quarterback Matt Simms’ one-yard quarterback sneak play which put EC up 14-13.
Still, Chaffey gave EC a good game and a pretty good scare.
“We knew Chaffey was good; even though they are 2-3 they were a couple of plays away from beating Grossmont, which is one of the undefeated teams in the state and they gave Cerritos a very good game last week and Cerritos is still undefeated,” Featherstone said.
Chaffey played three undefeated teams three weeks in a row and played tough against all three and could have won all three, Featherstone said.
“They could have beaten us, but the bottom line is that they didn’t,” Featherstone said.
The Warriors had 228 yards of offense, including 78 on the ground and 150 on the air.
“They had a pretty good game, but we controlled and dominated the second half,” tight end and wide receiver Erik Stewart said.
On offense, Simms went 15-22 for 142 yards and two touchdown throws and a rushing touchdown.
Running back Tony Sekona had 13 yards on three carries and seven yards on two receptions and a touchdown reception and running back Ken Ashley had 44 yards on eight carries.
“(The touchdown) was straight, but I had to work for it,” Sekona said.
“Both of these guys ran pretty hard,” Featherstone said.
On defense, defensive end Ashley Jean-Jacques had eight tackles, four tackles for lost, three quarterback sacks for 27 points and linebacker Bilal Muhammad had 13 tackles, two tackles for lost for 29 points.
“I think I performed decent and although I made mistakes, I am happy that the team won,” Muhammad said.
The Warriors, who are the No.1 ranked team in the nation, accoding to JCGridiron.com, can expect more of what they saw on Saturday down the road as the season progresses.
“Yeah, College of the Desert is 4-2 and they are a good football team,” Featherstone said. “They are a little bit different than Chaffey, but they still have talent so we have to be sure to do our best.”
The Warriors’ next game is Saturday at College of the Desert at 6 p.m. in Boone Stadium.
“You never know. I expected our team to play better this week than we did to start out last week and now I expect our guys to play very hard this week,” Featherstone said. “No letdown.”