EL SEGUNDO HERALD September 28, 2017 Page 5
Eagles Football Continue to
Roll with Win Over Torrance
By Gregg McMullin
The El Segundo Eagles continue to dominate
their non-league opponents. With their
41-10 win over Torrance, it marked their
21st consecutive non-league win going back
to the 2013 season.
On a cool, windy first day of fall evening,
the Eagles looked to torch the Tartars in the
first quarter. An early 13-0 lead gave the
Eagles the confidence they needed on both
offense and defense. When it looked like
El Segundo was going to run up a score,
the offense came up short but the defense
was stellar.
Torrance opened the game with a 41-yard
run by Eric Suarez. That woke the Eagles’
defense up, as it allowed just 13 total yards
the rest of the first quarter. Junior quarterback
Matt Romero marched the Eagles 80 yards
in eight plays to get El Segundo on the
scoreboard. During the drive, Romero found
Devin Bonney open for a 29-yard pass play
and Romero scrambled for 15 yards for a
first down. Then after Kyle Freeman picked
up six yards running up the middle, Danny
McEntee caught an eight-yard touchdown pass.
On Torrance’s ensuing possession, El Segundo’s
defense flexed its muscles. On the
first play, Eagle cornerback Tyler Villalobos’
tenacious hit on Suarez caused the Tartar running
back to lose the football. McEntee easily
scooped up the fumble and ran untouched 30
yards for a 13-0 El Segundo lead.
To end the first quarter and start the second
quarter the Tartars ran 15 plays and chewed
up nearly eight minutes on the their drive.
The drive stalled out at the El Segundo 24-
yard line and a field goal attempt failed after
a mishandled snap was recovered by Jorge
Montani. Torrance did manage a 26-yard field
goal with 10 seconds remaining in the first half.
El Segundo’s offensive first half woes
could be traced to dropped passes, too many
penalties and Romero being sacked. Those
issues were discussed at halftime and changes
were made. What really woke up the Eagles
was the opening second half kickoff that was
fumbled and recovered by Torrance at the
El Segundo 12-yard line. The Tartars took
advantage four plays later for a touchdown
to make it 13-10.
El Segundo’s offense, which had struggled,
then scored on four consecutive possessions.
With four minutes remaining in the third
quarter, El Segundo took over at its own
15-yard line. On second and long, Romero
found Devin Bonney in stride on a slant
route. Bonney slipped two defenders and
outran the Tartars secondary for an 85-yard
touchdown. Working on a short field on the
next possession, Romero essentially did it
himself. He rushed for six yards and three
plays later scrambled 25 yards for a touchdown
to make it 27-10.
The Tartars were content believing they
could run the ball to get back into the game.
The Eagles defense had other thoughts and
Tyler Villalobos put a punishing hit on Torrance’s
Jerome Duhon and recovered his
fumble at the Torrance 41-yard line. It took
the Eagles just three plays to increase the
lead. This time Romero dumped a pass off to
Danny McEntee, who took the ball to the end
zone for a 30-yard score and a 34-10 lead.
The Tartars seemed content on running
the ball and conceding the game. On their
seventh play of the drive, Taj Balogun and
Dylan Phillips forced a fumble that was recovered
by Joey Gorte. Gorte was rewarded
with three rushing plays, including one for
a seven-yard touchdown run and the final
score of the game.
The Eagles are rolling and could improve
to an unbeaten non-league schedule when
they travel to face South Torrance on Friday
night. The Spartans are off to a dismal 0-4
start and have been outscored 149-14 thus
far. Still, Eagle head coach Steve Shevlin
isn’t taking the Spartans for granted. “They’re
a well-coached team and they’ve played a
tough schedule, so we’ll need to be prepared,”
he said.
Kurke Honored For Volleyball
In a poll that accumulated over 14,000
votes, Maddie Kurke earned more than 50
percent of the total vote garnering her SCPL
(SoCal Prep Legends) Athlete of the Week
honors. Kurke recorded 72 kills on 150 attempts
(.366 hitting percentage) to help lead
the Lady Eagles to a third-place finish at the
Valley Christian Tournament. Kurke averaged
Los Angeles Rams Proving
They Are Deserving of Fandom
By Adam Serrao
Levi’s Stadium in San Francisco was basically
empty last Thursday night. That may
have been because there was a matchup going
on between the San Francisco 49ers and the
Los Angeles Rams. Coming into this season,
those two teams were pegged to be two of
the least interesting squads in the entire National
Football League. After everyone was
done complaining about yet another boring
primetime game put on by the NFL, though,
something amazing happened. A total of 80
points were put up on the scoreboard in a
41-39 victory for the Rams in a contest that
has the opportunity to go down as the most
exciting game played all season long.
When 49ers quarterback Brian Hoyer threw
an interception and Rams running back Todd
Gurley took the ball into the end zone for a
touchdown all within the first 12 seconds of
last week’s divisional matchup, there was a
definite feeling that the crowd on hand--no
matter how small it may have been--was in for
something special. Even if there wasn’t much
defense on display, the combined 80 points
scored between the two teams set a new record
for most ever scored on a Thursday night
game. Though San Francisco lost the game,
fans of the team may just take solace in the
fact that it scored its first offensive touchdown
of the year--and for once this season, actually
looked exciting on the football field.
The real story of the night did not revolve
around the 49ers, though. Jared Goff, the ex-
Cal graduate and first overall pick in the 2016
draft, came back home to Northern California
and put on a show. In this one game alone,
Goff showed why he was so highly touted
coming out of college as he threw for 292
yards through the air and three touchdowns
while only throwing six incomplete passes
(22 of 28) throughout the course of the night.
With their 41-point output last week, the Rams
already have more 40-point games this season
than they had in Jeff Fisher’s entire tenure as
head coach of the team.
“That was scary,” the young 22-year-old
Goff explained after the game. “But man, it
was fun. There’s something about being back
in the Bay Area that gets me going. Honestly,
it felt like we were in Berkeley scoring all the
time and needing to score some more. They
kept coming at us. I thought I was gonna have
to go out and score one more time to win it.”
Goff’s impressive effort was good enough, but
may not have stood out as much if it weren’t
for Gurley, who looks to have shaken off his
shaky output from one season ago and has
finally regained elite running back status.
Gurley finished the game with 28 carries
for 113 yards and two touchdowns on the
ground, but also caught five balls for another
36 yards and a touchdown. The running back
out of Georgia already has as many touchdowns
this year (six) as he had throughout the
entire 2016 regular season. An elite running
back in the backfield certainly does its part
to open up an offense that looked horrific just
one season ago. Elite wide receivers never
hurt that cause either--and although there
have been some questions in the past about
the health of Sammy Watkins and the ability
of Robert Woods, both looked legitimate
last week against the 49ers. Watkins finished
the night with six catches for 106 yards and
two touchdowns while Woods hauled in six
catches for 108 yards.
“Since I’ve been here, we haven’t been able
to do that,” Gurley said of the production of
his new-look offense. “Hopefully we can keep
putting points together, keep working together
and keep learning from this.” If they do, they
can expect to stay in first place in the NFC
West where the team currently resides. But it
wasn’t all terrific play for Los Angeles. The
team still gave up 39 points on the night and
almost blew a 15-point lead that would have
lost them the game against a team that literally
fell to the worst record in all of football.
There is always time for optimism after
a great, high-scoring win. By season’s end,
however, the Rams will still have to deal
with the Arizona Cardinals and the Seattle
Seahawks--two teams that both look pretty
horrible right now. The good news is that
Jared Goff is finally in a position to succeed
and with his new-look, explosive offense,
the Rams just might be an exciting team to
watch once again. Whether football fans in
Los Angeles finally come out of their dark,
dreary holes to watch a game at the Coliseum
that doesn’t feature the USC Trojans is another
question altogether.
For now, the Los Angeles Rams are on
top of the world and on top of their division
with a 2-1 record. The offense looked good
and with Aaron Donald back, the defense is
slowly coming back together. There is actually
a reason to watch games played by a Los
Angeles team in the NFL once again. Whether
this momentary success is short-lived because
of who their opponent happened to be or becomes
prolonged is something that only time
will tell. Next up for the Rams is a game on
the road against the Dallas Cowboys that once
again everyone expects Los Angeles to lose.
If Los Angeles can somehow pull out a win
in “Jerry World,” then it might just be safe
to say that this Rams team is the real deal.
– Aserrao6@yahoo.com •
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From left Devin Bonney, James Amerault and Collin McEwan led an inspired defense against Torrance in the second half.
See Eagles, page 8