If there was ever any question whether the Warriors would have trouble defeating the Seahawks out on the gridiron on Saturday’s showdown, EC’s offense quickly responded by scoring less than three minutes after kickoff.
And then some; with wide receiver Ken McRoyal rushing for a two-point conversion after running back Peter Walton’s 4-yard touchdown run that eventually led to a 56-37 EC (4-0) victory at Harbor College (2-2).
“We were fired up for the game, there’s no question about it,” coach John Featherstone said. “We moved the ball well offensively and even though they scored a bundled of points on us today, the bottom line is that we won.”
Quarterback Omar Herrera led EC, completing 19 out of 29 passes for 332 yards and a touchdown.
“I made a couple of mental mistakes but overall we got the victory and I think I did pretty good,” Herrera said. “We were playing to put a lot of points on the board and the scoreboard told it all.”
Offensively, the Warriors had a total of 610 yards and gave up 360 yards on defense.
“Our offense was amped up; we scored 42 points in the first half; it was the first time we did that this year,” wide receiver Ronald Gaudin, who transferred to EC from Harbor this season, said. “I played at Harbor last year and they worked hard every day in practice so I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
Despite EC’s dominating offensive performance, the Warriors defense had trouble getting its job done after the second half, when in the fourth quarter with less than five minutes left in the game Harbor scored on a fumble return to make it a 12-point game.
“We had our moments where we could have buried them but we ended up just not getting it done on defense,” Featherstone said. “It was our turn to show up and finally do something offensively, which we did.”
Up next, the Warriors, who are currently ranked No. 7 in the nation according to JCGridiron.com, will face the Comets of Palomar College on Saturday at 6 p.m. in Murdock Stadium.
“We expect every game we play to win,” Featherstone said. “And we are going to continue to take one game at a time.”