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By Christian Lopez
Travis Jonsen strides down the field for a 64 yard touchdown run setting the bar high in the second half.
Coming off a bye week after a win against Cerritos, Riverside City College’s football team looked to pick up where they left off as they took on Chaffey College for RCC’S Breast Cancer Awareness game. The event was organized to honor those who have and are courageously fighting the disease.
The success the RCC football team has been having found its way into a 56-7 blowout win over Chaffey College.
Going into the game, the high octane offense was led by quarterback Vic Viramontes who accounted for three rushing touchdowns and one passing touchdown in one-half of play leading the Tigers to a 42-0 score over the Panthers at halftime.
The Tigers dominated defensively against the Panthers giving up just one scoring drive and 279 yards of total offense while also forcing four fumbles all resulting in a change of possession.
Chaffey found themselves in multiple punting situations early on due to finding little to no success in both the passing and rushing game thanks to RCC’s hard hitting defense and drops by Chaffey’s receivers.
Tanarious Achan, freshman wide receiver, accounted for one receiving and two rushing touchdowns garnering nearly half of the touchdowns scored in the game.
“Just the past few years, (the way we’ve been playing) especially at home we knew we had to keep the home streak alive.” Achan said.
Tom Craft, head coach of the RCC football team, was pleased the way his team played throughout the game.
“We came off the bye week looking to improve in some areas and we did” said coach Craft. “The passing game was good, the running game was good, defensively we did what we had to do.”
The game got off to a fast start with Achan taking the opening kickoff for 33 yards. They would only pick up steam after that as the opening drive lasted just six plays with a 15 yard touchdown run by Viramontes.
The next two drives did not mirror this success however as the next two possessions ended in turnovers. Despite this, Chaffey was unable to capitalize and score on either drive.
On Chaffey’s next offensive possession, linebacker Devin Charles forced Chaffey running back Derrione Leeper to fumble and ultimately turnover the ball. With the successful takeaway, the Tigers led a short drive that ended in another Viramontes touchdown run.
RCC ended the first quarter in fashion with a 20 yard over the shoulder touchdown pass to Achan to give the Tigers a 21-0 lead. Chaffey’s offensive woes continued as they turned the ball over on three consecutive times all resulting in RCC touchdowns.
With an already demanding lead, sophomore quarterback Travis Jonsen was called upon to start the second half for RCC in relief of Viramontes.
For the Chaffey Panthers, they found a way to get their first (and only) points of the game on a 20 yard touchdown rush in the third quarter.
After RCC turned the ball over on a fumble and Chaffey on downs, the Tigers found their way to score for their eighth touchdown of the game extending and solidifying their lead against Chaffey coming away with a 56-7 victory showing why they are ranked No. 2 in the conference rankings.
Though their record remains perfect, Achan and his teammates believe they still have a ways to go.
“We expect to just go hard every practice we know the teams we are going to be facing and they’re tough teams but our coaching staff puts us in a great position to win every Saturday.”
With another win in the books the team is set to take on 2-4 LA Harbor College as they look to extend their unbeaten record.
