The Santa Rosa Junior College football team went over .500 for the first time this season with a thrilling 30-29 victory against Sacramento City College Sept. 19 at Bailey Field.
After the game, Bear Cubs head coach Lenny Wagner talked about the improvements the team has made over a few short weeks. “We took a big step forward in the run game department and made big stops on D that ultimately won the game,” he said.
The Bear Cubs ran for a whopping 102 yards in the game, while their defense held Sacramento City to a brutal total of just 12 yards rushing.
While success both running the football and stopping the run was key in the victory, the Bear Cubs defense also came away with three interceptions, consistently giving the offense good field position.
Quarterback Vincent Jefferies produced a strong performance in the game, with 30 completions in 45 attempts, good for 424 yards and two touchdowns, one a perfectly thrown bomb to receiver Kerr Johnson Jr.
Johnson consistently got behind the Sacramento defense with ease, gouging their secondary for huge gains several times throughout the game.
For an extremely young Bear Cubs team, this was a huge early season win against a quality opponent.
“We had big improvements in many areas…It was nice to see some of our freshman make huge plays,” said Wagner.
While a win is the ultimate goal going into each and every game, there are still areas in which the Bear Cubs need to improve.
“We need to do a much better job protecting the QB, establishing the run game and better execution on special teams…we are progressing but still have a long way to go,” Wagner said.
The Bear Cubs were unable to keep up the momentum the following week, fading late while losing a hard fought game to Laney College by a final of 31-20. The Bear Cubs return to the gridiron Sept. 3 against College of the Sequoias.
