By Tadzio Garcia
The cross country and football teams highlight this past week in East Los Angeles College sports. The men’s soccer team tied, while the women’s soccer team survived a red-card fest in a 3-1 loss. The volleyball team lost a nail-biter.
Football chooses collegiality over first-stringers
In the last two weeks, winless El Camino College Compton Center lost to Mountain Conference rivals Victor Valley College, 65-28, and Southwestern College, 69-20.
The Huskies played with the spirit of collegiality and filled plays with reserves in a 48-27 win over Compton instead of racking up the score.
With the reserve-laden team, the Huskies also broke some records.
With the win over Compton, the Huskies have scored 354 points this season. The previous record was 336 points set by the 2009 Husky team.
The offense racked up 524 total yards against Compton. Their season total of 4580 yards surpasses their previous record set in 2009 of 4578 yards.
Husky quarterback Aaron Cantu threw for 416 yards from 29 of 46 passes for five touchdowns and no interceptions. His season total of 380 attempts surpasses the previous record set by Pedro Velasquez in 2009.
Cantu has thrown for 3,018 yards this season connecting on 241 passes from 380 attempts. He has tossed 29 touchdowns and seven interceptions while averaging 377.2 yards per game.
This includes four quarters of missed action in the eight games he has played. As a result, he is the No. 2-ranked quarterback in the state for community colleges.
Against Compton, the Huskies raced to a 20-0 lead in their first three possessions with six, two and six-yard drives.
Compton erased that lead, in their last home game of the season, to 20-14 when backup quarterback Justin Aguilar hit Jacob Roper with a 19-yard touchdown pass at 10:06 in the second quarter.
The offensive feast ended with 524 total yards for ELAC to 396 for Compton.
Twenty-four Huskies, including reserves, made a season-high 80 tackles led by Shawn Esparza’s fourteen. Esparza leads the Huskies with 59 tackles this season.
Gilbert De La Rosa added 13 while Bijon Callum added eight and Donyae Olton made seven. They were followed by Max Silver and Brad Sanchez (five each), Breeon Moreno (four) and Zac Rivera (three). Moreno also nabbed an interception for 14 yards.
Adding two tackles each were Eddie Cisneros, CJ Dudley, Cesar Jauregui, Richard Moreno an Sean Acuna.
Adding one tackle each were Hector Cazales, Demetrius Campbell, Gerald Clayton, Dylan Gomez, Tyler Smith, Daniel Davis Zachary Correa, Eduardo Rodriguez, Daniel Davis, John Rose and Larry Morrow.
The Huskies were going to win with players that have not seen much action, if at all. Daniel Davis and Chris Perez both made their first tackles of the season.
Running back Preston Oliver rushed for 81 yards.
The Huskies will host San Diego Mesa College on Saturday at 6 p.m.
Runners advance to state
The men’s cross country team and Megan Magdaleno from the women’s team advanced out of the SoCal Championships to the State Championships.
The state finals will be at Woodward Park in Fresno on Nov. 17, beginning at 10am.
At SoCal, the Huskies ran away with two huge upsets.
Andres De La Cruz is the first Husky to make the top-twenty for the first time since 2006 when Oscar Ogwaro won the four-mile race in 21:53.35 minutes.
De La Cruz took 19th place out of a field of SoCal’s top 195 men in 20:42.77.
He was followed by Huskies Daniel Rincon-Zaragoza who took 32nd place in 21:00.77 and Kris Chacon, who ran 21:51.30 to take the No. 72 spot.
Andres Rosas placed No. 106 in 22:24.48 followed by Aaron Jasso (No. 122 in 22:45.14) who rounded out the scoring for the Huskies.
Gonzalo Ceja finished in 23:19.73 abd Oscar Jasso finished in 23:51.92.
Magdaleno, the lone Husky from the women’s team to advance to SoCal, advanced to the state finals. She placed 48th at SoCal out of 205 runners.
Magdaleno saved enough energy to outsprint Arianna Condon of Golden West by less than a second and Aleeshsa Flugum of Moorpark in less than two seconds.
Soccer sees red
The first of many red cards last Friday, Nov. 3, was given to Jesus Mariscal for elbowing a Compton player in the men’s match. Playing short, the Huskies fought hard for a 1-1 tie. It was however the first time in six meetings with Compton that ELAC didn’t record a win.
The men’s team closes out their season at home against El Camino College, Tuesday at 3 p.m. at Weingart Stadium in the second match in a doubleheader with the women’s team.
ELAC is on the road in their final game of the regular season at LA Harbor next Friday, Nov. 10 at 6 p.m.
The women’s soccer team won a 3-1 controversial match against Compton at home last Friday. Four red cards were flagged with both teams each receiving two.
As a result, Natahsa Witzl and Suzie Terrones will not be playing in the match against El Camino on Tuesday, at 1 p.m., at home. ELAC’s last game of the regular season will also be at home on Friday against LA Harbor at 4 p.m.
Basketball and wrestling teams have key games
The basketball teams begin their season this week.
The women’s team will compete in the Mission College Tournament in Santa Clara Friday through Sunday. Head Coach Bruce Turner says the team is strong enough to advance to the postseason.
The men’s basketball team will begin their highly anticipated season in the Clash at Canyons on Friday and Saturday at College of the Canyons in Santa Clarita.
John Mosely begins his first season as the men’s basketball team’s head coach.
The wrestling team, ranked No. 13 in the state, will travel to Bakersfield College next weekend in their conference finals. The Huskies will host their Second Annual Brawl on Nov. 17 in the men’s gym all day.
Volleyball team loses in four sets
By Will Hernandez
Revenge set in as the women’s volleyball team lost at LA Trade Tech College, 3-1, after beating them earlier this month at home.
Husky head coach Elliot Walker had some harsh comments about his team’s performance on Friday night comparing it to a roller coaster.
“They’re unpredictable, execution of game skills they lacked, there was no camaraderie, as far as team ethics are concerned, and they’re playing on that emotional roller coaster… it’s all about having a high volley IQ, and more desire which they lack,” Walker said.
ELAC lost 23-25, 20-25, 25-16 and 25-19.
Freshman setter Nissa Gamez commented on the emotional letdown of the loss saying, “It’s tough. It’s a very hard loss… we need to fix our errors and just try and stay positive for our next game.”
With the loss, the Huskies dropped into a tie with Trade Tech for second-to-last place in the South Coast Conference. ELAC takes on Cerritos College, Wednesday Nov. 7.