Culver City boys high school football team will travel to East Los Angeles to battle Salesian High School at 7 p.m. on Thursday instead of the traditional Friday night game. Bishop Mora Salesian is an all-boys school located in Boyle Heights.
The 1-1Culver City Centaurs will be playing their third game of the season and this will be their first road game. They were beaten by San Jacinto 42-28 on Aug. 30, and they beat Narbonne 43-26 last Friday night.
“Every week is different,” said Centaur head coach Jahmal Wright in a telephone interview last Monday. “We were able to start a little faster against Narbonne. I thought our special teams did a great job on punt returns and we made timely big plays in the running and passing game which helped us establish our game plan.”
Wright was also happy about the way the defense played.
Although they did not contain Narbonne’s two explosive offensive weapons, quarterback Jaden O’Neal and freshman running back Derrick Jackson, the defense made enough keep plays to keep them out of the end zone. Wright had high praise for Centaur defensive coaches Derrick Huezo, Anthony Thomas and Ralph Oliver.
“The biggest improvement from last week was on defense,” said long time Culver City assistant and former head coach Cornell Myles after the game. “They made turnovers with interceptions and that helped the offense. The defense came to play, and Myles (Singleton) was excellent on both sides of the football. “Braylon (Singleton), Jordan (Njoku) Jonas Ross and Darryl Davis also did a good job on defense.”
Myles is hoping the defense can continue to play at a high level. “When we come to practice, and we practice hard like it’s game situation then the actual game will be easy. The defense needs to practice like it’s a game. We have the athletes to be able to take care of business in practice.”
On the offensive side of the ball Culver City was led by the senior trio of quarterback Seth Shigg and receivers Myles Singleton and Braylon Singleton. Shigg had a hand in six touchdowns, running for three and passing for three. “He did a great job using his athleticism and our running game was better against Narbonne,” said Wright.
“I definitely feel like we played better than last week,” said Shigg, who will be attending West Point and playing football for Army next season. “I think we played up to our talent level this week. I trusted myself more and got into a rhythm and I was able to trust my teammates out there.”
After four years of varsity football at Culver City the Singleton brothers are playing their final year of high school football. The brothers are hoping to duplicate how they played against Narbonne when they battle Salesian. “I feel like we played well tonight but we cannot get too high on ourselves because we have to get ready for Salesian,” said Myles (Singleton) after the Narbonne game. We played with energy tonight.”
Braylon (Singleton) gave credit to the coaches for getting them ready to face a good Harbor City Narbonne team. “We practiced hard all week, and the coaches pushed us hard. We can be a very good team if we stay focused. We need to keep going up from here. My brother and I are feeling good about playing our final year of high school football.”
The Centaurs stay on the road for two more weeks when they travel to Warren on Sept. 20, and they play Dorsey on Sept.27.
Both games start at 7 p.m.