Chad Wright ran 21 times for 114 yards and a touchdown on Saturday afternoon and SBCC gave first-place West L.A. a battle before falling 34-13 in its football season finale at Culver City.
LeAndre Thompson accounted for four touchdowns (2 rushing, 2 passing) to help the Wildcats (6-3, 5-0) remain undefeated in the American Pacific Conference. His TD passes covered 58 yards to Dominic Cooper on the second play of the game and 70 yards to Donald Drisdom, extending the lead to 27-13 late in the third quarter.
The Vaqueros (0-10, 0-6) scored on a trick play for the second straight week. Receiver James Pearlstone took a handoff from Wright on a reverse and tossed a 29-yard TD to Pierre Hale, cutting the deficit to 14-6 with 11:48 to go in the second quarter. The PAT kick was blocked.
The Wildcats drove 49 yards in four plays and took a 21-6 lead on a 24-yard Thompson-to-Geno Hall connection with 4:53 to go before halftime.
Mike Spiritosanto, who played quarterback for Dos Pueblos High last year, set up the Vaqueros’ second TD with a 53-yard punt return to the West L.A. 23. SBCC reached the end zone with seven straight runs, capped by a 1-yard plunge by Wright.
Adam Maisch booted the PAT to pare the deficit to eight (21-13) with 4:10 remaining in the third period.
“Mike’s one of the guys we’re counting on for next year,” said SBCC coach Craig Moropoulos. “He does a lot of things for us — punt return, kick return and he plays great at safety.”
Spiritosanto had nine tackles, plus the 53-yard punt return and a 42-yard kickoff return.
“I asked our guys to step up today and play with pride and they did that, to the last second,” said Moropoulos. “That’s all I can ask. We lost some guys offensively that took some wind out of our sails in the third quarter. But we scored and our defense played really well.”
The Vaqueros lost their top two running backs, Wright and Alonzo Winn, to injury in the third quarter.
Three plays after Wright’s TD, the Wildcats struck back with a 70-yard TD pass to stretch the lead to 27-13.
SBCC drove 57 yards on its next possession to reach to 10. On the first play of the final quarter, a fourth-and-2, quarterback Jake Umphreyville’s pass was batted down at the line.
West L.A. held a slim lead in first downs (19-16) while dominating in total yards (410-193). Umphreyville completed 11-of-27 passes for 85 yards with an interception. He was sacked seven times for 50 yards in losses.
Safety Mitch Nelson and linebacker Chad Quirarte led the defense with 12 tackles apiece. Thomas Borchert added nine while Collin Powell had seven tackles, two fumble recoveries and a pass breakup.
“We had a lot of setbacks this year and we lost some guys we were counting on early,” Moropoulos said. “When adversity happens, you ask guys to step up. Our defense did that time after time and today was a great example of that.”
