Orange Coast College

Fum-belled: Turnovers cost Pirates the bell in 20-13 loss to GWC

Saturday, November 11, 2006

COSTA MESA - To say the least, the first game under the moniker "Beach Bowl" will not be soon forgotten, which is a bad thing for the Orange Coast College Pirates.
Thanks to five turnovers and one big Rustler offensive play, the heavily favored Pirates (7-3) watched rival Golden West (2-8) claim the Victory Bell with a 20-13 win on Saturday night at LeBard Stadium.
The loss will throw a monkey wrench into the Pirates' postseason plans. What started out as a warm-up to the State Football Tournament is now a wait-and-see for Mike Taylor's squad.
The Rustlers' win, on the other hand, snapped an eight-game losing streak and put a positive exclamation point on first-year coach Nick Mitchell's season. GWC leads the head-to-head series 20-17-2.
As the mistakes piled up for the Pirates, stingy OCC defense and some errant field-goal attempts by GWC (2-for-6) kept the Bucs in the game through three quarters.
Early in the fourth, Pirate linebacker Shaun Mohler sacked and forced a fumble from GWC quarterback Les Obie. Teammate Winter Welz scooped up the ball and rumbled 36 yards for a touchdown, giving the Pirates a 13-10 lead with 12:03 left in the game.
Following an OCC defensive stand, things looked good for the "guests" but a dropped punt gave the Rustlers the ball on the Pirates' 27-yard line.
GWC took advantage and tied the game at 13 with a 39-yard field goal by Jake Lipton with 7:45 remaining.
The Pirates could not answer and after an OCC punt in the end zone brought the ball out to the Rustlers' 20, Odie hooked up with Delahoussaye on a 1-on-1 jump ball. Delahoussaye caught the ball and broke free from the OCC defender for an 80-yard touchdown, giving the Rustlers a 20-13 lead with 3:20 left.
A trio of penalties forced GWC to kick off from its own 10-yard line and following the kickoff return, the Pirates had the ball on the Rustlers' 45 with 2:58 left.
With quarterback Kekoa Crowell on the sideline with an injured elbow, backup quarterback Chris Debowski came in and got the Bucs down to the GWC 7-yard line, first and goal.
But the Pirates were their own worst enemy. A false start penalty, two incomplete passes and an offensive pass interference infraction pushed the ball back to the GWC 27 before a Debowski pass was intercepted by Patrick Tafua to stop the threat and preserve the win for the Rustlers.
OCC was held to 182 yards of total offense against a GWC defense that allowed 307 yards per game.
The Pirates must now wait and see how the postseason schedule develops and whether they are invited to the dance or not. A decision will be made on Sunday.