The final Homecoming Game at the current Veterans Memorial Stadium went pretty much exactly to plan for Long Beach City College on Saturday afternoon.
From the first drive of the day, the Vikings offense looked crisp, the defense was solid, and the scoreboard reflected their dominance. Long Beach raced out to a 28-0 lead over visiting Santa Ana College and never looked back in a resounding 52-21 win.
“I feel like we played well. We did a good job,” said LBCC head coach Marques Cooper after his team’s second win in a row. “We didn’t execute on everything that we wanted to, of course, but when is that ever the case? That’s just me being a coach. But man, the kids came out, they played well. Coming off a big win, sometimes you can have a let down, and so with them coming out and playing hard, I’m just happy that they came and did a great job for us.”
As Cooper mentioned, the Vikings earned a massive road win over Citrus College last Saturday, 52-38. With the win over Santa Ana, the Vikings improved to 3-1 in conference play ahead of a massive showdown at rivals Mt. SAC on Thursday.
It’s been a solid midseason resurgence for the Vikings under their interim head coach, as they’ve won 3 of their last 4 games since getting into conference action.
Saturday’s win was the first home win for Cooper and Co. and it was led by the passing game. The LBCC offense racked up 506 total yards, with 439 coming through the air.
QB Wyatt McCauley threw for 316 yards and had four passing TDs–all in the first half. After throwing for five TDs last week at Citrus, McCauley is playing some of his best ball of the season at the right time. Allen Fernett came in at quarterback in the second half on Saturday and added 123 yards passing and a pair of TD tosses.
Five different receivers caught TD passes, with tight end Kyle Brown collecting a pair. He had four grabs for 104 yards, one of three Vikings to eclipse the century mark. Ike White had a team-high seven catches for 113 yards and a score, Owen Tomich hauled in four passes for 102 yards and a TD, and Justin Auston and Michael Wilson each had short TD grabs as well.
Long Beach also produced plenty of explosive plays through the air, with four of their six passing touchdowns coming from 40+ yards out.
“The quarterbacks have done a great job,” Cooper said. “We have some very good receivers too, and they do a great job of winning 50/50 balls and going up and attacking the ball. We had a couple of drops here and there, of course, but they do a great job of executing and catching the ball, and then trying to get run after catch, too.”
The Vikings led 35-7 at halftime, and grew their lead to 45-7 in the second quarter after a short Ethan Smithlin field goal and a 45-yard TD to Brown on a seam route, thrown by Fernett.
Special teams nearly produced a score in the fourth quarter as Wilson returned a kickoff all the way to the Santa Ana one-yard line. Despite being ruled just short of the end zone, he hauled in a TD on the very next play to cap the scoring for LBCC.
Long Beach’s only non-passing TD went to running back Imari Conway, who punched in a one-yard TD plunge in the opening quarter. He had 12 carries for 59 yards to lead the LBCC rushing attack.
LBCC improves to 3-4 overall and 3-1 in conference play, while the loss drops Santa Ana to 0-7 on the year.
The Vikings will be back in action on Thursday night as they take the trip to Walnut to face Mt. SAC at 6 p.m. The Mounties are 6-1 on the year and ranked as the No. 6 team in the state. However, their one loss was against the same Citrus team that the Vikings beat last week, so Long Beach should have some confidence heading into that game, even as the underdogs.