With bowl implications at hand in their game against College of the Canyons Saturday night at Falcon Stadium, the Cerritos College football team scored a late touchdown, but failed on their two-point conversion and dropped a 38-36 decision. The loss was the third in a row for the Falcons, who dropped to 4-5 overall and 2-3 in the Northern Division with just one game left on the schedule. Cerritos will host Moorpark College at 7:00 p.m. next Saturday. The other two losses were by five and seven points.

Trailing 38-30 after Cougars quarterback Ryan Kasdorf connected with Drew Phillips for 66 yards before scoring on an 11-yard touchdown pass to Tim White with 4:25 left in the fourth quarter. Cerritos put themselves in good field position after sophomore Vailele Peko (La Habra HS/Saginaw Valley State College) returned the ensuing kickoff 33 yards to the Canyons 42-yard line. After a holding penalty negated an end around by sophomore Garion Manning (Long Beach Wilson HS) that would have put the ball at the 1-yard line, freshman running back Michael Jasper (Bellflower HS) scored his third touchdown of the game to get Cerritos to within 38-26 with 1:57 remaining.

The Falcons elected to go for two points, but sophomore quarterback Morgan Fennell (Long Beach Poly HS) saw his pass to freshman Ricky Carrigan, Jr. (Cabrillo HS) come up short. On the play, Garrion was alone in the slot, but Fennell, who was playing with an injured hand, chose to try and complete the conversion to Carrigan, Jr.

The game started with Cerritos driving 29 yards on three plays after Peko set the team up in great field position with his 60-yard kickoff return. Freshman Michael Garrison (Dominguez HS) finished the drive off with a three-yard touchdown run. College of the Canyons responded with a 54-yard drive of their own, as the teams traded scoring drives throughout the first half.

With Fennell (10-for-17, 120 yards) unable to throw downfield, the Falcons looked to move the ball on the ground, and found success with Jasper (21 carries, 108 yards) and Garrison (11 carries, 56 yards) who combined for all five touchdowns. The offensive line of sophomores Kent Collins (Los Alamitos HS), Sione Lavulo (Cottonwood, UT HS), Sean Rubalcava (St. Paul HS) and Tyler Burns (Chino HS), along with freshman Zach Alvidrez (Mayfair HS) helped the team amass 245 rushing yards.

For Canyons, they looked to Kasdorf, who threw for 357 yards and four touchdowns on 22-of-31 passes, with White and tight end Dan Vear his favorite targets.

The defense received eight tackles from Chass Glaspie (Westchester HS) and David Moala (Serra HS), who also recovered a fumble and posted a pair of quarterback hurries, while cornerback Christian Taylor (Carson HS) finished with seven stops. In addition to his five tackles, Peko returned three kickoffs for 97 yards.

Photo by Daryl Peterson