The Fresno City College Rams football team played a hard-fought game against the Santa Rosa Bear Cubs on Saturday night and wowed the fans with plenty of marvelous defensive plays in their second consecutive home game at Ratcliffe Stadium.
With FCC kicking off to begin the game, Santa Rosa put up the first points of the game with about 9 minutes left in the first quarter when the Bear Cubs quarterback Christian McAlvain launched a deep pass to receiver Logan Valencia.
FCC quickly responded with a quick touchdown of their own when quarterback Michael Baker found receiver Anthony Yancy for a 34-yard strike to give the Rams the lead at 7-6.
In the second quarter, both quarterbacks began to struggle mightily. FCC leaned more on their balanced running attack powered by both James Powell who rushed for 93 yards on 23 carries and a touchdown, and Oliver Cyprian who carried the ball for 113 yards and a touchdown of his own.
“I think we had a good effort. We could have played a lot better, the running game, could have been better also, it was kind of average,” said Cyprian.
The Rams rushed for a combined 227 rushing yards.
Running back James Holland capped off a 90-yard drive in the second quarter by scoring a touchdown on a 15-yard run. The touchdown gave the Rams a 14-6 lead with 8:13 left in the second quarter.
Coming out of halftime, the Rams displayed speed on all aspects of the ball and disrupted the Santa Rosa offense with three interceptions, two fumbles and six sacks. The Rams held Santa Rosa to one third down conversion and 26 yards rushing the whole game.
With 2:27 left in the third quarter, the Rams pushed Santa Rosa all the way to their own 1-yard line and forced a safety two plays later to push the score to 16-6.
FCC delivered the last blow with a 23 yard scamper to the end zone by Cyprian to put the score at 22-6. The defense sealed the deal with a sack by Josh Gibbs and an interception by defensive back Donnell Vercher at the FCC 22 yard line.
The Rams went into the game minus a couple of their key players, but head coach Tony Caviglia said he is proud of the players that stepped in and made plays.
“Our defense played great. (Santa Rosa’s offense) is a tough offense to defend and it’s a vertical passing game,” said Caviglia. “Our front four did a tremendous job putting pressure on the quarterback and we got some big plays all night.”
