And it started so well…The LBCC Vikings, playing the Grossmont Griffins at home to open conference play Saturday night, took the opening kickoff to start the game. Starting from their own 23-yard line, they went 77 yards in a little over a minute, scoring a touchdown to take a 7-0 lead. Their quarterback, Josh Powell, was 4/4 for 59 yards and a touchdown (to sophomore Leonard Willis), and starting back Darren Tubbs was moving the ball effectively against Grossmont’s undersized defense. Over the next 58 minutes, they managed less than a hundred additional yards of offense, and struggled in every phase of the game on their way to a 33-7 loss.
On the offensive side, Powell was five for his next thirteen, with less than forty yards and two interceptions, and the Griffins clamped down hard on the running game, neutralizing the bruising Tubbs and the shifty Travell Washington, his backup . The Vikings finished with five yards on the ground. With Stephen Burton, their best receiver, on the sidelines, Powell struggled to get the ball to his receivers, completing to only four players, one of whom was his running back. Part of that was the fact that his line, all of whom are freshman, couldn’t keep him off the ground, as the Griffins sacked him nine times. But Powell did manage to get outside the pocket and put himself in a position to make the play several times—there just wasn’t anyone downfield to throw it to.
Defensively, they didn’t fare much better, as Grossmont QB Dan Lewis threw all over the place, connecting with 11 different receivers for his 147 yards. The Vikings struggled to stop the run consistently, and gave up big chunks on the ground. Even when they stiffened to keep Grossmont out of the end zone, as they did on several occasions, Griffins’ kicker Brandon Bogotay—who will play at almost any D-1 school he wants next year—still managed to make them pay. He kept Washington from making any big returns by sticking the ball in the back of the end zone on every kickoff, and hit four field goals, as well—he had two misses, one of which was a 54-yard attempt that almost kissed the front of the crossbar.
LBCC certainly made their share of mistakes—the punter tossing it to the Griffins on a fake punt, with the interception coming back for a touchdown qualifies—but give credit to Grossmont. They’re well-coached, they play like they’ve known each other forever, and it’s obvious from their halftime routine and pre-game warmup that they have a lot of fun together. LBCC is now 3-2, and 0-1 in conference play. This may have been “one of those games,” but head coach Mike Reisbig and his staff are going to have to make sure there’s no bleedover into the rest of the season, as they only have five more games before the playoffs. They have the guys (on the team as well as the coaching staff) to turn it around, but if they keep shooting themselves in the foot, 2008 could turn out to be as bitter as the October cold at Vet’s on Saturday.
