By David A. Willauer-Chick Embry Field-Escondido High School-Escondido, CA-Saturday, September 10, 2016: In a see saw game that was loaded with qb passing and interceptions for both schools the Palomar Comets jumped out to a 21-0 lead on Malavai Taylor’s 29 yard interception return, Matt Romero’s 51 yard pass to Comet teammate Lamont Chaney (5 receptions for 73 yards) and Jordan Morris’ 7 yard run.
The Corsairs of Santa Monica College came within 7 at 21-14 as Brock Raggio threw his first of two touchdown pass to receiver Conor McMahan for 15 yards along with a Freddie De La Cruz’s 13 yard interception return.
The Comets on Matt Romero’s (20 completions out of 33 attempts for 244 yards) connected his second touchdown pass to teammate Robert Ursua (4 receptions for 50 yards) for 14 yards to go up by a 35-14 score.
Santa Monica JC came back as Kwame Duggins 2 carries for 30 yards scored on a 26 yarder and qb Brock Raggio (28 completions out of 45 attempts for 366 yards) threw his second touchdown pass to teammate Conor McMahon (8 receptions for 92 yards) for 28 yards with two consecutive 2 point conversion were good to make the final score 35-30 in favor of Palomar.
Joe Early head football coach at Palomar: “After our loss last week vs. Southwestern we play better then what we did and discussed certain situations in our weekly practice it was good for our squad to jump out 21-0, but we fell into certain situations in which the penalties hurt us when our offense has trouble executing things weren’t good and experienced enough to overcome those types of situations I give a lot of credit to Santa Monica they were low on numbers but their squad kept fighting and didn’t quit.”
“When we led 21-14 our defense had problems executing and not making key tackles well, those are the issues that we have to look on film and to correct so when we go out on the practice field we have to work on them for us to improve each game.”In the second half we had a lot of key runs as quite a few of our players have stepping up for us in our running backs Isaiah Auger and Currie Thompson as they moved the ball well on the ground that was good to see to close the game out.” said Coach Early.
“When we got a first and goal at the 4 and our offense couldn’t get in that is something of the issues that we will address in practice, we can’t give up 9 yard drives back to back with our defense this is not good to what our standards are but we will have to watch the film on qb Zack Romero he was a little disappointed that he missed some of the receivers threw high offensively we have some of our guys that are red shirts and gray shirts last year trying to get game experience, it is a learning things as long as we continue to get better every week we have a chance Cerritos is good squad they are big and tough I have known their staff for a long time we have to play them at their place it is going to be a physical game and we need to be ready for it.”said Coach Early
Other contributors to the game:
Palomar Issiah Augero 8 carries for 55 yards, Josh Bernard 12 carries for 43 yards
Santa Monica Khalil Miller 9 carries for 75 yards Darius Brown 5 receptions for 114 yards
With the win Palomar improves to 1-1 on the season and will travel to Cerritos College next Saturday night kickoff is at 6:00
