Summit Staff Reporter
It’s safe to say that the Grossmont Griffins are highly unpredictable. Nearly a week ago, the football team played the game of its life, knocking off the number-one state-ranked Riverside City Tigers. The Griffins jumped on top of Riverside 31-14 at the half and never looked back.
Freshman quarterback, Michael Carrillo took control of the game by completing 16 of 33 passes for 237 yards and three touchdowns in a 38-28 upset over the Tigers. Running back Thomas McDonald rushed for 87 yards on 11 carries and had 4 receptions for 82 yards out of the backfield to total 169 all-purpose yards to finish the game.
“I would say, this is the biggest game I have ever played in,” McDonald said.
This win marked the biggest victory since seizing the state championship in 2005.“I guess we’ve had bigger victories, but this one has to rank at the top of the list,” said Mike Jordan, Grossmont’s head coach.
But words “youth” and “inexperience” come to mind when discussing this Griffin team. It showed a few weeks before in a 35-6 loss to Southwestern in the season opener. However, despite getting beaten the way they did, the Griffins know how to bounce back and make adjustments, and that is what they did going into the Riverside game: Adjust.
After its win against River-side, Grossmont came into the next week a little overconfident despite the big win. The Griffins were unable to put together a solid scoring drive against Golden West College on Saturday (Sept. 27). They fell to Golden West 41-6 in a brutal one-sided contest. While the score sounds bad, the statistics show a closer game. Golden West had 399 total yards, while Grossmont ended with 327. The Griffins could not score in the red zone.
The problem against Golden West is that the Griffins seemed to lose confidence. But Grossmont has proven this season so far that they can contend with any team; we saw that against Riverside. The hype got to them, and they proved to be worn out after the big win. A team can always have the tools to be physically tough, but if the team is struggling with mental toughness, it makes it that much harder for the coaching staff.
Things went from bad to worse the next week against Palomar. Grossmont did not come to play once again, resulting in a 41-24 loss Oct. 4. It is tough to say in which direction the Griffins are headed. Now they need to gain mental focus and catch their second wind. They have to come in to every game hungry and determined to win. Once this young team finds its identity, the sky’s the limit.
