Saturday football report: SRJC comes up short; St. Vincent rolls to victory

The Santa Rosa Junior College football team almost completed the upset, but College of San Mateo was able to hold off the late comeback attempts, winning 24-12 on Saturday in Santa Rosa.

“I thought we played hard, but we made a lot of mental mistakes that cost us. Could've, would've, should've but you look back and you say we played them close the whole game and we made a bunch of mistakes, so it's a little frustrating to feel like one slipped away from us we could've had,” Santa Rosa head coach Lenny Wagner said.

The Bear Cubs (1-5 overall, 0-1 Big 8 conference) got off to a slow start to begin the season. But as of late they have started to perform better.

After Santa Rosa was outscored 80-30 in the first two games, the Bear Cubs have somewhat turned things around losing two games by less than a touchdown, including a 24-20 loss in overtime to Shasta College. They won their first game last week, dominating Feather River College in a 45-7 drubbing.

Saturday's contest was highly contested for most of the game and seemed like anyone could win as the two teams traded blows in the third quarter, but San Mateo (6-0 overall, 1-0 Big 8) scored a clutch touchdown to start the fourth quarter and seal the win

The game opened with a defensive stare down, as neither team was able to find much room to work with on offense and the two traded field goals.

In the final minutes of the first half, San Mateo was finally able to put a long drive together against Santa Rosa's stingy defense and took the lead on a 9-yard rushing touchdown from Darrell Page to go up 10-3 at halftime.

On the opening kickoff of the second half the Bear Cubs forced and recovered a fumble to put their offense on the opponent's 35-yard line.

Santa Rosa made the Bulldogs pay for their error scoring on a 20-yard field goal from Keven Nguyen to reduce San Mateo's lead to 10-6.

With less than four minutes left in the third quarter, the Bulldogs' Trey Smith blocked the Bear Cubs punt and San Mateo followed that up with a 2-yard touchdown pass from Luke Bottari to Terrell Carter.

On the very next play Santa Rosa answered with Maceo Barbosa's 65-yard touchdown run to decrease San Mateo's lead to 17-12 heading into the fourth quarter.

But the Bulldogs offense was firing on all cylinders to start the fourth and finished another long drive with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Carter.

In control of the game now, San Mateo was content to handoff the ball, run out the clock and walked away with the 24-12 victory.

High schools

ST. VINCENT 41, OAKLAND MILITARY 0

The St. Vincent High Mustangs improved their record to 8-1 with a dominant performance Saturday night at home against the Oakland Military Institute.

Freshman sensation Kai Hall rushed for 185 yards on just nine carries, scoring a pair of touchdowns. Senior Andrew Kohler added 107 yards on the ground on just six carries for the Mustangs.

St. Vincent closes out its regular season next Saturday by hosting the California School for the Deaf before preparing for the NCS playoffs.