The Los Medanos College football team secured their second win of the season last Saturday Sept 24, defeating Merced 27-24, and now gear up to battle winless Hartnell College.
Hartnell is 0-2 on the young season and have lost their first two games by 45 and 33 points. Despite the rough start to the season for the Panthers, LMC head football coach Chris Shipe said he doesn’t want his team to look past their week four opponent.
“They’re going to scrap,” Shipe said of Hartnell. “They are not big in stature, but they’re big in heart. We need to prepare our guys to not overlook a team like this because they are going to find a way to compete and make every situation a difficult situation for us. We have to prepare everyone for a tough game.”
Battling a winless opponent is something the Mustangs are familiar with as they did so just this past week when going against Merced.
“We found a way to win versus Merced,” Shipe said. “Hartnell is an 0-2 team so they are hungry just like Merced was. We don’t want to fall victim to a team who’s struggling and give them an opportunity and hope.”
While LMC did get the win over the Blue Devils, Shipe said the offense struggled, and praised the defense’s performance in the road win. The Mustang defense surrendered just three points in the first half and forced four turnovers on the night against Merced.
“(Merced) made some turnovers, which we created,” Shipe said. “We found a way to beat a team who had nothing to lose, and that’s a positive that we have to give our players.”
LMC’s offense went scoreless in their first five possessions against Merced, before finding the endzone twice in the second quarter. The group also turned the ball over twice in the fourth quarter which allowed Merced to pull within one possession and gave them an opportunity to tie, or even take the lead.
“We didn’t play well offensively in the first quarter,” Shipe said. “Our defense played well and it kept us close because that game could have went a bunch of different ways.”
The Mustangs offense got off to a slow start out of the halftime break, something that also happened in the Mustangs week two loss against Monterey Peninsula College.
Shipe said he takes some of the blame for the slow offensive performance out of the halftime break, but added the team is working on increasing their tempo as they prepare for Hartnell.
One of LMC’s goals entering their battle against Merced was to stop the run, which saw mixed results. Merced ran for 162 yards on the Mustang defense, but Shipe was proud of his defense to keep the Blue Devil running backs out of the end zone.
There were a lot of teaching moments Shipe had with his offensive group, both occurring on fumbles. Both also occurred with LMC ball-carriers trying to fight for extra yards in situations they didn’t need to.
“Hopefully we can learn and understand the situations we delivered in the game,” Shipe said. “Fortunately, we found a way to win so everything’s teachable.”
A win Saturday against Hartnell would give the Mustangs back to back wins, something the team failed to accomplish last season.
