Football: Bucs on a Mission

Tony Altobelli

COSTA MESA - Vacation time is over for Orange Coast College

football and as Northern Division plays begins Saturday at 1 p.m. against

league powerhouse Cerritos, Coach Mike Taylor will see first hand if the

bye week has helped or harmed his Pirates.

“I think it was a positive,” Taylor said. “It seemed like 1,000 days

since the Riverside game, which was good, because I needed 1,000 days to

recover from it.”

Halfway into the season for the Pirates, one thing is for sure: OCC

will have to outscore their opponents in order to win ball games.

“We’re going to have to control the ball against Cerritos,” Taylor

said. “We have the running backs to run against them and we’re going to

have to put up some points against their tough defense.”

Fortunately for the Bucs (2-3), they have the weapons to do so, with

quarterback Jared Flint, running back Jimmie Banks, receiver David

Castleton and back-receiver combo Raymond Ohrel.

Flint is at the top of the conference in passing yardage (1,227),

passing completions (94), and passing percentage (.635) and is second to

El Camino’s Robert Hodge in yards per game (245.4).

Banks, despite playing in an effective passing program, is eighth in

the conference with 294 yards rushing on 49 carries. His six yards per

carry is sixth-best overall.

The key to Flint’s success largely depends on how well Banks is able

to produce, forcing the defense to pull their entire attention off of

Flint.

Castleton ranks third among conference receivers with 475 reception

yards, averaging nearly 20 yards per catch.

Coming out of the backfield, Ohrel has been another Flint favorite,

with 27 receptions for 328 yards. His 132.2 all-purpose yards per game

place him fifth in the conference, just ahead of Castleton 125 yards per

game.

However, with the bye week came some time to heal and with the return

of the Pirates’ top defensive back, Johnnie Peeples and a revitalized

core of linemen and backers, look for OCC to return to the hard-hitting

style from their first couple of games.

“We’ve been doing goal-line drills in practice and in the past, the

offense has scored six out of the eight times,” Taylor said. “The last

time we did it this week, the offense scored only once, so maybe the week

off got the juices flowing again.”

Cerritos (4-1) has won four in a row and eight of its last 10 games,

dating back to last year.

The Falcons lead the overall head-to-head series with the Pirates,

15-10, including four in a row and seven of the last eight.

Last year’s Falcon squad went 9-2 overall, 4-1 in the Northern

Division, including a 51-14 win over the Bucs and a 35-21 win over Allan Hancock College in the Cerritos Strawberry Bowl.

The biggest strength to the Falcons is their defense, allowing a

conference-low 10.2 points per game, including holding their opponents to

seven points or less in three of their last four games played.

Leading the defensive charge for the Falcons is free safety Ray Ross,

who holds the conference lead with nine interceptions, leading the pack

by a wide margin. The two next-highest players in the entire conference

have three picks.

On the offensive side of the ball, after a slow start the first two

games, Cerritos is starting to find the end zone with more frequency,

averaging nearly 33 points per game in their last three games.

The Falcons depend on a punishing ground game with the duo of

sophomores Brian McDonald and Mike Brown.

McDonald is fourth in the conference with 413 yards on 91 carries and

five touchdowns, while Brown leads the conference with 14 yards per

carry.

The biggest weakness for the Falcons, ironically, is their ability to

gain yards in the air.

Cerritos is dead last in passing offense, averaging a measly 139 yards

per game, with only four passing touchdowns.

Something will have to give, as the Falcons’ poor passing goes up

against a Pirates’ defense that ranks 11th out of 12 teams in passing

defense, allowing over 233 yards a game in the air.

Several former Falcons will appear on OCC’s side of the field,

including linebacker Andrew Medley, offensive lineman Jesse Chagolla and

defensive lineman Johnny Garcia.