By D’zhane Parker / Staff Writer
By D’zhane Parker / Staff Writer
The Riverside City College football team started its season strong with two wins.
The early accomplishment is real big for the team after ending last season with a 1-9 record.
The Tiger’s opened up the season with an impressive 64-28 victory against San Bernardino Valley College.
RCC’s wide receiver, Sadale Foster, sent the crowd roaring after making the first touchdown of the night.
Penalties were handed out, but that didn’t stop the Tigers from scoring.
The Tigers scored 15 unanswered points after Damian Robinson scored the Tigers’ second touchdown.
San Bernardino Valley managed to keep the score close after cutting the lead to 15-8.
With 14 seconds left in the first quarter, Stevie Will made a touchdown to end the quarter with a 22-8 RCC lead.
The excitement after the first quarter kept the crowd on their feet cheering for the Tigers.
After the first quarter finished, fans were still trying to catch a glimpse of the season opener and were overflowing Wheelock field, to the extent that most of them had to watch the game from a far.
The Tigers kept running the score up after John Greenwalt made the third touchdown of the game to put the team up 29-14.
With five minutes left in the first half, Andre Hunt carried the ball for a 68-yard touchdown to end the half with a Tigers’ 36-14 lead.
“Looking back at last week’s game, I don’t want to come into the games too big headed,” Hunt said. “So its time to put that behind and play our hearts out every game. There is a lot of work to do.”
During halftime, the crowd was entertained by the RCC marching band as the band kept the crowd hyped and excited about the first half.
To begin the second half, Ryan Hosmeister scored a touchdown that was later followed by a few more touchdowns made by Sadale Foster and Kindall Mayes. Mayes’ touchdown came with a minute left in the game.
Robinson caught the finale touchdown pass of the night to end the game at 64-28 for a Riverside victory.
Janaar Barnes said he feels their year has started off strong and with a little more work they will be in great condition.
“Our year started off strong. Looks like we should have a great season as soon as our defense conditions a little more we should be solid,” Barnes said.
“Very excited by the way we played, our mental mistakes were out of the way. A perfect way to start the season. All the hard work played off,” Marquis Cox said after the game.
Sept. 18 saw another win against Victor Valley, with a lead of nine points which brought the winning score to 16-7.
The first touchdown of the night was made by Andre Hunt.
Despite thehigh scoring game the team had in its first game; its second game was slow but it was another victory for the team.
John Greenwalt, was the unofficial MVP for the Tigers for the night, by scoring Riverside’s winning touchdown.
As the time was expiring with a few seconds left in the game, Victor Valley scored their only touchdown of the game to end the game 16-7.
The new head coach, Tom Craft is happy with his team’s progress this season.
“I’m very proud of the first two wins. It’s an inexperienced football team; 78 freshman and 15 sophomores,” he said. “They are working to improve for the homecoming game.”
The Tigers have came out on top for the past two games but the challenge is just getting harder.
The undefeated RCC Tigers now head to Walnut, CA, to face the also undefeated Mt. San Antonio on Sept. 25.
It is just not another regular game on the schedule because not only is coach Craft returning to his old team where was successful, but both teams are entering the game with no losses.
The current standings show that Mt. San Antonio is tied with Pasadena for the National Southern Conference.
As for Riverside, they lead the Central East Conference by a half a game over Santa Ana.
The pressure coming into the season was to win, but now that the team is winning; the question now is how much will the team be successful?