On Saturday, Sept. 28, the Moorpark College football team hosted their Homecoming game against El Camino College. The Raiders were looking to bounce back from their first loss last week.
This would be their second home game of the season and mark the first game of conference play. After a back-and-forth, high-scoring game, the Raiders would ultimately fall 52-41 to the El Camino Warriors.
Moorpark was set to receive the opening kick and hoped to score quickly, and the team did just that. On their second play from scrimmage, quarterback Kadyn Parr completed a 50-yard pass to DJ James. The big gain set the Raiders up to score first only two plays later to take a 7-0 lead.
Following the first score, the Raiders made the call to try an onside kick, hoping to catch the Warriors off guard. However, the call didn’t go according to plan and came back to bite Moorpark. With only 54 yards to the end zone, El Camino marched down the field to tie the score at 7-7.
Moorpark’s next drive ended with the game’s first turnover, but the hungry Raider defense came up big, holding El Camino to just one field goal.
The Parr lead offense would bounce back after the turnover, rattling off a ten-play, 75-yard drive. The Raiders capped off the great drive with DJ James’s second receiving touchdown, putting the Raiders up 14-10 just over halfway through the first quarter.
Unfortunately for the home team, El Camino’s offense would find a groove, scoring touchdowns on two consecutive drives. After the first 15 minutes of action, the Raiders found themselves in a 10-point hole.
Freshman defensive lineman Jaden Mosley discussed the team’s early defensive struggles.
“When we first came out, we didn’t really have our flow with us,” Mosley said. “We made a lot of mistakes and didn’t have the best preparation in a way.”
The visiting Warriors stretched the lead to as much as 14-38 halfway through the second quarter. With the deficit growing, the Raiders strung their offense together when they needed it. Red-shirt sophomore Corbin Hale was on the receiving end of a huge 57-yard touchdown.
The defense rallied behind their offense’s big effort and forced a stop just before the two-minute timeout. Moorpark’s offense could not score again in the half and headed into the locker room with some work to do, down 20-38.
The homecoming team hoped their surge at the end of the first half would carry into the second, but the Warriors had other plans. An El Camino first-drive touchdown moved the score to 20-45.
Desperately trying to mount a comeback, the defense would force clutch fumbles on back-to-back El Camino drives. The huge momentum shift brought the home team within 12, cutting the deficit to 33-45.
Mosley made further comments reflecting on the defensive turnaround late in the game.
“Well we knew that when it came to how we were going to potentially win the game [it] was going to be the defense that needed to do it,” Mosley said. “When it comes to making the stops and changing the energy and momentum, defense really does many things that contribute to that.”
Each team would score once more, and as the third quarter ended, the score read 41-52. Moorpark came out with a defensive stop to open the fourth quarter, but neither team would go on to score again as both defenses looked air-tight. The clock slowly wound down on Moorpark’s homecoming night, and the final on the scoreboard would read 52-41. After a shutout in the fourth quarter, backup quarterback Luke Rasmussen was asked if he saw adjustments from them that flustered the offense of the Raiders.
“I think the defense was pretty much running the same thing that they were doing all game,” Rasmussen said. “Just bringing pressure and putting pressure on us as an offense, we just kind of stalled out at the end of the game.”
This loss didn’t come without a little bit of controversy. The crowd was on pins and needles all game, but a call in the fourth quarter that took away a big play for Moorpark riled up the Raider fans even more.
Moorpark out-gained their opponent in total yards, won the turnover margin, and edged El Camino out at the time of possession. Notably, quarterback Kadyn Parr accounted for 461 of the total offense and scored five touchdowns to boot.
The Raiders will look to right the ship next week and avoid losing three games in a row as they travel to face conference rival Allan Hancock on Saturday, Oct. 5, at 2:00 pm.
