On the one hand, Lakewood quarterback Jesse Scroggins threw for three touchdowns as his Lakewood Lancers scored on their first five drives of the game and defeated the Cabrillo Jaguars, 30-8 at Lakewood.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, Cabrillo adjusted their defense facing a 30-8 deficit in the second quarter and did not allow another Lakewood point, while racking up 210 yards on the ground and finishing strong against a talented, top tier Moore League team.<\/p>\n
“It was kind of a weird game,” said Lakewood coach Thadd MacNeil. “In the second half we self-destructed. Give [Cabrillo] credit, they did some good things.”<\/p>\n
Lakewood opened the game with an early field goal and followed it up with four consecutive touchdowns to take a 30-8 lead into halftime. The only non-scoring drive in the first half ended when Scroggins was intercepted deep in the Cabrillo red zone.<\/p>\n
Cabrillo’s touchdown came on a fake punt early in the second quarter. Down 10-0, coach A.J. Luke called for the direct snap to running back Kyle Marshall, who caught Lakewood’s punt return defense off guard for a 56-yard touchdown run. The Lancer defense was stunned as Marshall bulled his way across the line of scrimmage and shed a tackle from the punt returner to head into the endzone. Marshall then ran in the two-point conversion to cut Lakewood’s lead to 10-8.<\/p>\n
“That’s our special play,” coach Luke said of the fake. “I’ll only call it if special teams says they can do it, and tonight they told me they were going to get the first down, so I called it.”<\/p>\n
Marshall ended with 108 yards on 11 carries.<\/p>\n
But Lakewood’s offense didn’t miss a beat, answering the Jaguars’ score with Tawaun Lucas’ 11-yard touchdown run and consecutive TD tosses from Scroggins to receiver Kevin Anderson to bring the score to 30-8. Lucas finished with 67 yards on 11 carries (TD) while Anderson racked up 104 yards (2TD) on just 6 receptions.<\/p>\n
With the first half game clock running out, a Marshall fumble put Lakewood in excellent position for another score inside Cabrillo’s redzone. But the Jaguar secondary knocked down a pass, forced an overthrown fade and intercepted Scroggins as the first half expired and Cabrillo actually carried momentum into the intermission.<\/p>\n
After halftime, Cabrillo’s defense tightened up and Lakewood’s defense remained strong, forcing a turnover-on-downs-fest that would keep the second half scoreless. Cabrillo was unable to rely on their passing attack to get them back into the game, and Lakewood’s Scroggins completed just six passes in the second half – none for more than ten yards.<\/p>\n
It was a strange case in which the losing team may have impressed more than the victors – with Cabrillo still looking for its first win and holding a high-octane offense scoreless for a half, while Lakewood is playing for second place in the Moore League and did little to strike fear in any future opponents. Maybe that’s what Coach MacNeil meant by “a weird game.”<\/p>\n
The Lancers did show an impressive offensive arsenal with their first half fireworks show. Scroggins is arguably the Moore League’s top talent at quarterback, and showed it with accurate strikes to rack up nearly 200 yards in the first half. Anderson was able to find the seams in Cabrillo’s secondary and Tawaun Lucas (along with brother Dawaun) used impressive quickness to contribute to Lakewood’s ground attack – even with running back Octavius Tate sustaining an injury after just four carries. Tate is Lakewood’s third running back to fall prey to injury in the last two weeks.<\/p>\n
Cabrillo showed talent and potential, especially once the defense tightened up in the second half. The Jaguars are in the midst of building a program from the ground up and have had to throw many young players into the fire this season, facing very impressive opponents. There were moments of greatness from FB\/LB Leiatava Tua and DB Emmanuel Nelson – who picked off Scroggins to end the first half – not to mention Marshall’s effective running. Curiously, the Jaguars were unable to get the ball into the hands of Roman Lewis, Cabrillo’s most explosive player. Lewis lined up in the slot and at cornerback, but was not thrown to on offense and returned just one kick for 15 yards. <\/p>\n
The interesting thing about Cabrillo is that they’re so enthusiastic. Whether a 25-yard kick return or a huge hit from the free safety, the Jaguar sideline is constantly waiting to explode with excitement. They just won’t shut up<\/span>. The chatter is always positive and encouraging, the best thing you could hope for from a high school football team. It’s only a matter of time – probably two or three seasons – before Cabrillo matures its talent and puts it together to compete for a top spot in the league.<\/p>\n Until then, watch out for a power struggle in the Lakewood\/Jordan game next week, and keep an eye on Cabrillo\/Wilson as two high-energy squads head to battle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a tale of two halves as the Lancers led at halftime, 30-8, and at the end of the game, 30-8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5494\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5494"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5494"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}