The California Quake are playing at Downey HS this season ... just a few blocks from the World's Oldest McDonald's. They hosted the Tucson Monsoon Saturday night, and avenged last year's opening day loss by handily beating the Arizona visitors by a score of 45-14.
Click here for KodakGallery photos. Not a lot of photos 'cause I was taking them in between stints of running a video camera.
I wrote in one of the online boards where I post,
... Both teams gave up big plays early on and they both scored on their first two possessions, with Tucson holding a 14-13 edge.
The difference after that? Quake defense adjusted, Monsoon didn't. California made some wholesale personnel swaps and stoned Tucson's running game for most of the rest of the night. The Monsoon spent a lot of the fourth quarter in the red zone but couldn't punch it in, and they haven't a reliable kicker yet. They need one. They don't even punt! =:O
On the other hand, the Monsoon couldn't seem to do anything to stop the Quake's outside run, and speedy #5 Monique Zaky, who made a lot of would-be tacklers whiff. To me it looked like a combination of yeah she's that good and Tucson will be working on fundamentals a bit more ... run through and wrap up ladies! :)
Later, I got an email from my friend Nancy who's a Quake linebacker. She told me that the brilliant "adjustment" was actually just some of the first-stringers getting on the field. For those unfamiliar with football, it is common for coaches to hold a starting player out of the lineup for a series or two for missing practice or some other minor disciplinary violation. Don't read more into this; I don't know what happened, who was involved, or anything other than it really wasn't a big deal. Now all that early scoring makes perfect sense.
The team looks good this year. I have big hopes for them, and even though it's way too early to say anything like this, I think they have a shot at the division title :)
No comments:
Post a Comment