The Wildcats final away game on their month long journey ended in defeat Friday night losing the Golden Eagles of Desert Hot Springs.  With the win the Eagles improve to 5-1 on the season and are alone in second place in the De Anza league. The  night started positive for the cats as they quickly marched 55 yards on their opening series to take a quick 6-0 lead.  Arsenio Jones accounted for 45 of those yards on two tosses around the left end.  Senior QB Doc Edick punched it over from the one yard line to take the quick 6-0 lead.  The Eagles responded with a 65 yard scoring march on the legs of De Anza leading running back Treylon Hunt.  Hunt rushed for 171 yards on the evening to add to his total of 1229 rushing yards.  The Cats first rushing fumble of the season gave the Eagles the ball at the 12 yard line, setting up an easy score and a 14 -6 lead.  On the next series things would get much worse for the Wildcats, as a sack in the end zone would give DHS another gift, and a 16-7 lead.  The worst blow however; would come early in the second quarter as Senior starting QB Doc Edick scrambled around the right end on a 14 yard scamper which ended with a hard sideline tackle.  Edick would leave the game with a leg injury, leaving the quarterback duties to Junior Nico Matthews.  Nico provided a quick spark and led the Cats to a scoring drive late in the 1st half, completing a 4 yard touchdown pass to Senior wide out Kevin Wallace.  Matthews was 7 of 12 on the night for 76 yards and 1 touchdown pass.  The ground game of the Eagles proved to be too much as DHS took advantage of a short field from Wildcat miscues in the second half and grounded out a 64-12 victory.  The Eagles scored 17 points in the final 9 minutes of the game, including a 40 yard field goal with 2:32 remaining in the game.   Key standouts for the Wildcats were Jason Luke with 14 tackles including 8 solos. Mike Pelz contributed 10 tackles and a sack, along with Senior free safety Jerry Moscato who recorded 10 tackles and a QB Sack. Arsenio Jones had 12 carries for 72 yards, while 5 different players snagged receptions from Edick and Matthews.

 

Coaches Comments:   It was a tough loss, and losing Doc to an injury made it even that much harder to take. It has been a long month on the road to say the least.  We lost two really tough close games on the road the past two weeks, and I think our tank was a little empty.  We have 3 out of 4 games at home which should help tremendously.    I think the kids will rally at home this week.  We look forward to our first home game in a while, our fans are great, and we will need their support the next four weeks.