Hilltop Lancers 6 Patriots 27

To say yesterday was a hectic day would be an understatement.  When the bus left yesterday, we left minus 6 players that weren't released from 6th Period.  We arrive to the field at 2:45 and the referees tell us we are scheduled to kick-off at 3:00.  (We usually need 40 minutes to stretch before the game).  Luckily, the referees took pity on us and gave us an additional 20 minutes to warm up. 

Parents brought players to the game, QB's really didn't get the reps they needed to warm up sufficient and we had controlled chaos for a bit.  Things calmed down once we began the ball game. 

The Patriots took the opening kick-off to the Lancer 45 yard line and marched to a opening series TD with Keith Reed running a perfectly blocked option play from 30 yards out.  Then the scoreboard went dead.  Little did we know, all of San Diego County lost power.

Johnny Bergum was a workhorse and gained lots of tough yards.  Adrian Torres (who missed the bus) scored on a one yard TD run and a five yard TD pass from Cruz Samniego.  Samniego completed the scoring by throwing a 10 yard pass to Kage Nygaard.

Patriot defense played good, but as the Head Coach, I see room for improvement.  Ernie Moya, Casey Cirina and Jack Kurz led the charge up on the defensive line.  We will be working hard during the upcoming bye week to make ourselves better.

Our coaching staff did a great job managing the game.  My job is to coach the coaches and I felt they were very prepared to handle the adversity we encountered before yesterday's game.  As far as I am concered, they deserve the credit with yesterday's victory over the Lancers.  Coach Hubka, Abate, Naughton, Armenta, Brown and Munoz kept the players focused while rotating players in and out of the game. 

Once again, we had tremendous fan support at our game. I speak for the entire team and say thank you all very much for coming and supporting our players.  We will not have a home game this year, but having the fan support we have had so far this season really makes a difference.

The ride home on the bus was good.  There was hardly any traffic on the freeways.  But once we got to the locker room, there was no light and the locker room was pitch black.  That's OK, I have an App for that.  I used my new iPhone's flashlight App and went locker to locker to illuminate the players locks.  Players were able to get their iPhones out and began to help each other.  These young men truly take care of one another.