With last year’s Moore League MVP on the sidelines, and the Panthers’ next best weapon Princeton “Bobo” Fuimaono on the bench with a shoulder injury, Jordan coach Scott Meyer was desperate.  “We need fifteen yards!” he yelled with three minutes left in the game, the score still knotted 7-7 as it had been since the first quarter.  The Panthers had just blocked a Dominguez punt and taken over on the Dons’ 35-yard line—just fifteen yards out of field goal range.  Incompletion—one yard run—three yard run—and another incompletion meant no field goal, and a turnover on downs, in a situation that summed up the Panthers’ first game since John Timu’s ACL tear: not quite there.

“We didn’t just lose a good quarterback,” said Meyer before the 13-7 overtime loss.  “We lost the guy our offense runs through, and our best defensive playmaker, and our punter and kicker.”  In other words, about a fourth of a football team—Timu (who joked that his coaches had to lock his pads up to keep him from trying to play) did everything he could from the sideline, shouting encouragement and audible suggestions, but he couldn’t do the one thing he (and his coaches) most wanted to: make the game-breaking play.

It started out well enough—on their first drive, the Panthers orchestrated a 97-yard, five-minute masterpiece, as Fuimaono gained yardage in big chunks on the ground, as well as receiving.  The drive was capped by QB Keith Nixon’s 12-yard TD to Sanyo Taliu, giving Jordan the game’s first points.  Early in the second, a Jordan punt that was nearly blocked gave the Dons the ball back just thirty yards from paydirt, and they marched in quickly, as Dominguez QB Chris Brown scuttled around the outside and into the end zone to tie it. 

From that point forward, it was all about the defense.  The Panthers’ exhausted D gave up 290 yards in regulation, but didn’t allow Dominguez another point, as they rose up time and time again to shut down the Dons on third and fourth down.  Jordan seemed to have momentum a few times—towards the end of the first half, after a double-pass from Fuimaono to Anthony Smith was good for 22 yards…but Fuimaono tried to chuck it again, and it was picked off.  The Panthers were driving in the late third/early fourth, and faced a third-and-thirteen around midfield.  Fuimaono made an incredible run down the right sideline to get the first down…but a late penalty flag negated the play and Fuimaono had to come out of the game with a shoulder injury.  And finally, after the blocked punt, Jordan was just feet from victory, but with Fuimaono sidelined, couldn’t get there.

In the absence of Timu, Fuimaono was really all Jordan had going offensively—they put together 130 yards total, but just 24 yards were gained by players other than Fuimaono.  That was the challenge facing the Panthers as the game ticked into overtime, as he remained on the sideline.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything there—the Panthers lost eight yards on two carries before Fuimaono attempted to return, visibly favoring his arm.  He gained two yards, putting the Panthers at the 16—the field goal attempt had the length, but was just a shade left.  Dominguez running back Will Gregory (20 carries for 97 yards) gained nine on the first carry, against a gassed Jordan defense, and then Brown took the plunge on third down to seal the 13-7 win.

Jordan will have to wait and see whether Fuimaono’s injury is serious, or whether he’ll be ready next week, when the Panthers continue a hellacious three-week stretch that has them facing Poly and Oaks Christian on the road.  The biggest positive they can take away from this game, that saw a heartbreaking overtime defeat coupled with another injury to a key player?  Perhaps Meyer put it best in telling his team after the game, “The preseason is over—everybody’s 0-0.”  For the Jordan Panthers right now, a blank slate must be sounding pretty good.