By Jeff Odom
Other than winning the turnover battle, the Steinbrenner football team didn’t find many positives in a 34-10 drubbing at Sickles Sept. 1.
Offensively, the Warriors (0-1) were held to just four first downs — three in the first half — and -31 yards rushing, an unusual stat for a team that averaged 187.6 yards on the ground last season.
“It shows how much work we have to do,” said first-year Steinbrenner coach Andres Perez. “At this point, it’s a tough loss because we had high expectations for ourselves, but hopefully we’ll wake our kids up.”
On the other side, the Gryphons (1-0) couldn’t have asked for a better way to kickoff their 2012 campaign. They used their rushing attack to perfection, wearing down the Steinbrenner defense, which couldn’t stop Ray Ray McCloud.
The Sickles running back had 125 yards on eight carries in the first half alone before being pulled for reserves in the third quarter.
The Gryphons had the Warriors playing catch-up early, scoring the game’s first touchdown on their second possession.
Steinbrenner senior kicker Michael Ruggles got his team on the board with a 26-yard field goal, but Sickles answered with a 13-play, 54-yard drive capped off by quarterback Nate Mills sneaking into the end zone.
The lone bright spot on offense for Steinbrenner came after McCloud fumbled on a 30-yard run, which the Warriors recovered. On the next play, junior quarterback Curtis Fitch found senior Jon Marc Carrier for a 77-yard touchdown to cut the deficit to four.
That’s as close as it got. The Gryphons scored again before halftime and pulled away in the second half with two more touchdowns.
“You gotta credit that defensive line over there,” Perez said. “They brought it all day and our offensive line, we’ve gotta work a whole lot harder and our backs have gotta hit those open holes.”
The Warriors failed to muster anything on offense in the third and fourth quarters as Fitch, who finished 4-for-10 with 119 yards and one touchdown, was sacked four times. The team gained just three yards during the last 24 minutes, earning one first down thanks to a pass interference penalty.
Steinbrenner couldn’t run the football either, trying a carousel of Jake Carroll, Kendall Pearcey and Shaheem Barthell. The three backs combined for only nine yards on 16 carries.
The Warriors play at East Bay on Sept. 7 at 7:30 p.m.
