The Los Medanos College Mustangs took on the Hartnell College Panthers but lost 41-7 last Saturday.
Hartnell lit up the scoreboard and Panthers Head Coach Matt Collins was impressed with his teams’ play. Hartnell started their scoring barrage early as they scored 21 points in the first quarter.
“We did pretty good, long touchdown drives, and executed right out of the gate,” said Collins.
LMC Head Coach Chris Shipe noticed Hartnell had a good plan and executed it.
“Hartnell had a solid team… they made plays when they needed too, they forced turnovers,” said Shipe.
The Mustangs relied heavily on the ground game to move the ball, having only 77 yards passing on the day. The Mustang ground attack was lead by running back Shawn Vasquez who ran for 121 yards.
Head Coach Chris Shipe was not impressed with Vasquez’s big performance, not because he believes he played poorly in anyway, but because of his high expectations for Vasquez given his talent level.
The Mustangs used three Quarterbacks throughout the game, as there is not a definite starter yet. “The Quarterback situation is still up in the air,” said Shipe.
The Mustangs will look to their running backs to take pressure off the signal callers.
“Our ground game makes it easier on the QB,” said Shipe.
Both head coaches admit that both of their squads have a lot of work to do and there were a lot of typical first game mistakes.
Even though the score was lopsided, Collins had nothing but good to say about LMC.
“They are a good team, very competitive, they play in a tough division and they will adjust and play hard,” said Collins.
The Mustangs still look forward to the remainder of the season and won’t let this one game prevent them from having a successful season otherwise.
Los Medanos gave up 498 yards of total offense to the Panthers but Shipe and his team plan to bounce back and look forward to next week’s game where they will take on the Cabrillo College Seahawks for the Mustangs home opener.
According to Shipe, his team will get back to work, study film, and get a lot of reps in preparation for upcoming games.
Shipe looks forward to playing on a familar field and in front of a Mustangs home crowd.
Cabrillo did not play in week one and Shipe sees this as an advantage.
“We have one game of experience over them,” said Shipe.