The Moorpark College Football team was not able to recover from seven penalties in the first half of the game and suffered a loss of 3-31 to Bakersfield College on Oct. 20 at Griffin Stadium.

The Raiders had to punt the ball, nine times for a loss of 366 yards. They had 12 penalties in the game which cost them 102 yards.

Head Coach Will Thurston said that his team wasn’t able to regroup after the first half penalties.

“We just had a tough time moving the ball on offense because we had so many penalties in the first half,” said Thurston.

The game was led by the Maxx Backfield of QB Max Leffler and RB Maxx Lunn. Leffler ended up with 144 passing yards and two rushing yards. Lunn had 46 rushing yards and two receiving yards. WR Keith Williams ended up with 67 receiving yards on five catches. Even though, Leffler threw 15 complete passes, he wasn’t able to get a touchdown on any of them. The only points in the game were scored off of a 32 yard field goal by Alex Nelson.

Athletic Director Howard Davis thought that the team could have played better if they got some big plays going.

“We played okay and if we would have hit a couple of those big plays that we couldn’t quite connect on those long passes,” said Davis.

The Raiders will have to play the rest of the season without their Kicker Derek Kirk, who broke his leg while making a tackle on a kickoff return against Pasadena City College last week. Kirk is the best kicker in the state for not missing a field goal and having the most attempts. This injury adds another player to an injury plagued season for the Raiders.

The Raiders are now 2-6 and will take on College of the Canyons at Griffin Stadium at 1 p.m. on Oct. 27. This will be the last home game for the Raiders for this season.

 DB Victor Fermin said that his team is going to be ready to face off against College of the Canyons next week.

“We expect to throw the rock, we are going to be ready on defense, we want to look past the ball because I want more interceptions,” said Fermin.