WALNUT, California- – On Saturday the Grossmont Griffins football team travelled up to Walnut, and were subsequently cracked by the #4 ranked defending national champion Mount San Antonio College Mounties in a 28-6 defeat.
“That was definitely the best defense we’ll see this season, maybe one of the best I’ve ever seen. But if we had done our jobs more effectively we would have had a chance to win that game. We just weren’t hitting on all cylinders, that’s for sure,” said Coach Mike Jordan.
The Mt. SAC defense was the buzz saw and the Griffins offense was the wood as the Mounties held the Griffins to only 64 net offensive yards for the game and registered nine quarterback sacks.
While Grossmont gained 44 yards rushing, they had 82 yards in losses for a net of -38 yards on the ground. Grossmont mustered 102 yards passing, 46 of which came on the lone scoring drive with 6:18 left in the game where backup quarterback Harrison Stewart found wide out Tim Patrick on a 31 yard touchdown to put the Griffins on the board. Patrick was the lone bright spot offensively hauling in 4 receptions for 71 yards and a score.
The Griffins used three quarterbacks throughout the game and they went a combined 8-23 for 102 yards. The turnover battle was even as both teams only lost one fumble apiece, but Mt. SAC suffocated the Griffin offense drive after drive. Griffin punter Stephen Mos was busy punting on 11 straight possessions sandwiched between an opening drive lost fumble and the final scoring drive. Mos averaged 40.5 yards a punt, landing one inside the 20 with a long of 56 yards. “We moved some guys around this week offensively and we made some early season mistakes,” said Coach Jordan.
Donnie Walsh led the Griffin defense with 7 tackles and a tackle for loss. The Mt. SAC offense was balanced gaining 240 yards on the ground and 211 in the air. The Mounties dominated the time of possession 37:30 to 20:50. They were particularly stingy in the first and fourth quarters with a time of possession advantage of 21:58 to 6:22. Mt. SAC jumped out to a 14-0 first quarter lead. After a scoreless second quarter Mt. SAC tacked a touchdown on in the third and fourth quarters, taking a commanding 28-0 lead until Grossmont’s final scoring drive.
“We took a step back on all positions offensively today,” said Coach Jordan after his team had made significant progress in each of the last four weeks. “We did plenty wrong, you learn more from bad games than good games, there was plenty of bad going on so we can learn a lot.”
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Hurst, managing editor of the GC Summit, may be contacted at [email protected]
