For the third straight week the Culver City football team will take on one of the best teams in the Los Angeles and South Bay area’s, when the Centaurs face the Lawndale Cardinals Friday, 7 p.m. at Culver City. Both teams are 6-0 overall and 1-0 in Ocean League play.
Two weeks ago the Centaurs beat Los Angeles Dorsey 30-27 with a last second field goal by Carlos Barillas and last Friday Culver City beat El Segundo 46-27. Both of those games were road wins so hopefully those outstanding victories will get them ready for their biggest test of the year against Lawndale.
Culver City is the No. 1 ranked team in the CIF Division 11 and Lawndale is ranked No. 3 in Division 5. “It’s going to be a war,” said the Culver City head coach last Friday after their win over El Segundo. “We have a lot of respect for their program and they have some great athletes and so do we. We will be up for the challenge but we need to be more focused in the second half and we need to focus on stopping the run against Lawndale.”
Stopping the run starts with stopping junior Jordan Wilmore who ran for 288 yards and scored six touchdowns against the Centaurs last season. This year Wilmore has rushed for 1,079 yards on 77 carries. He is averaging 14.0 yards a carry and he has scored 15 touchdowns.
Culver City’s defense has played well but to beat Lawndale they will have to play great defensive football. One player that is ready for the challenge is senior defensive back Robert Simon. Against El Segundo he made a hard tackle against their running back, came off the field for a few plays and went right back in the game to make more tackles.
“I just love playing sports,” said Simon after the El Segundo game. “Football is my favorite sport and I watch a lot of football on television. When I was young I only played soccer then I started playing football in the ninth grade. This year we have a fast defense and this team keeps growing together.”
Culver City defensive players Jamar Baines, Jordan Armstrong, Alex Smith, Cortez Wright, Aaron Carey, Jayden Porter are just a few of the players that will have to step up against Lawndale. It’s going to take a whole teams effort to beat the Cardinals.
According to longtime Culver City assistant coach Cornell Myles the Centaurs will be ready to battle the Cardinals. “This team has a lot of character. It shows when one of our players gets hurt. This team is good enough to reload. We have the next man up attitude and that’s when stars are born. We have faith in all of our players at Culver City.”
The Culver City girls volleyball team has currently compiled a record of 20-1 overall and 5-0 in the Ocean league which is good enough for first place. They are the number No. 2 ranked team in CIF Division 4 behind Alemany and they are coached by one of the best volleyball coaches in the nation, Tanner Siegal.
They travel to Lawndale (today) Thursday for a 3:15 p.m. match and they travel to Hawthorne next week on Tuesday for a match also at 3:15 p.m. On Thursday, Oct. 19 the Centaurs will take on second place Santa Monica on Senior Night at 5:15 p.m. at Culver City