Culver City varsity football team seeks to rebound from last week’s 51-13 demoralizing defeat at the hands of No. 1 ranked West Torrance. The good news is that the Centaurs have nine games to right the ship and their next opponent, Peninsula, also lost its first game of the season to North Torrance 34-19. The bad news is Culver City has a lot of holes to fill before they can call themselves a good football team. Friday’s game against Peninsula will start at 7 p.m.
“We need to improve on all phrases of the game,” said offensive coordinator Aki Wilson last Friday night at West Torrance. Although Culver City scored on an 86-yard scoring run by Donavan Davis on the first play from scrimmage, West Torrance scored 37-straight points to put the game away in the first half. West Torrance was led by their All-CIF running back Brett Ojiyi, who had five touchdowns in the game.
“When Brett ran inside we stopped him but we let him get outside and that really hurt us,” Culver City Coach Jahmal Wright said. “We also missed a lot of tackles and the turnovers killed us. We need to execute better.”
The offense starts with the quarterback position and the Centaur signal caller Xavier Ryan was under tremendous pressure most of the night. With the offensive line being able hold its blocks longer at the line of scrimmage Culver City will have a chance to beat Peninsula, since Davis and Anthony Polk provide a solid running attack.
Davis ran for 159 yards and scored two touchdowns against West Torrance.
“We fought hard but we have a lot of first year varsity players on the team,” Davis said. “We can bounce back against Peninsula.” Davis realizes that he is the main weapon on the 2014 Centaur team and he is ready for the challenge.
“As long as my teammates have my back I can carry the load but we also need to pick our quarterbacks up when they make a mistake,” Davis said. “This is a team game.”
Although the score was lopsided the players and coaches stayed positive after the loss.
“Basically we could not get any momentum going,” Centaur assistant coach Cornell Mylesmsaid. “We were battling against ourselves but we never gave up. That’s what I like about this team. They don’t give up and they fight to the end.”
Myles believes that the Centaurs have a good defense.
“We are fast and can get to the ball but we need to come together and play a little tougher and tackle better,” Myles said. “We have a lot of potential.”
On offense Culver City would like to control the ball with its running game and that will take the pressure off of their young quarterbacks.
“We need to stay calm and don’t panic,” said assistant coach Jarvis Redwine. “We need to stick to the game plan. We are young but after a few games we will be alright.”
Culver City girls’ volleyball team will face St. Monica today at 3:15 p.m. in the Del Goodyear gym on the Culver City campus. The girls are 1-0 after their victory 3-0 victory over Pacifica Christian last Tuesday.