COC football upsets state's No. 1 team in season opener

by Mason Nesbitt, Signal Staff Writer

Week 1 Results

WALNUT — The temporary home of the No. 1 ranked community college football team in California and reigning state champions was somber around 9 p.m. on Saturday night.

The unranked visitors from the Santa Clarita Valley were the ones with all the reason for celebration.

"Let's go!" yelled College of the Canyons wide receiver Vincent Strange as he skipped away from the hand-shaking line.

Strange and Valencia High graduate Nick Jones had magical chemistry all night with Cougars quarterback Devon Dunn. And the Cougars' defense smothered the Mt. San Antonio College Mounties in a 30-6 rout of an upset on Saturday at Walnut High.

"What about that one, huh?" asked COC head coach Ted Iacenda with a victorious smile. "… I always believe in my boys."

Iacenda's boys gave him reason to believe early on Saturday, ending two promising Mounties' drives in a total of three points in the first quarter.

Then Dunn found Jones, who redshirted at Idaho State last season, for a 33-yard touchdown strike with 2:16 left in the first to give the Cougars (1-0) a 7-3 lead.

After Mt. SAC (0-1) hit another field goal, Dunn hit a wide-open Strange over the middle, and the sophomore receiver took it the rest of the way for a 38-yard score and a 13-6 COC advantage with 7:14 to play in the half.

Dunn, in his first year as a full-time starter at COC, finished the game 17-of-35 for 364 yards and three touchdowns. He threw one interception.

Jones caught four passes for 170 yards. His 69-yard reception early in the third quarter set up an Alec Chadwick 37-yard field goal that put COC ahead 16-6. And his 50-yard catch later in the quarter set up Kenny Torrence's 2-yard TD run to put the Cougars up 23-6.

Not to be outdone, Strange caught eight passes for 172 yards and two TDs — the second of which was a 60-yard bubble screen that set the final score late in the fourth.

"They're studs out there," Dunn said of Strange and Jones. "They know exactly what they're doing. … It's a big victory coming back from last year. But we still have to work."

The last year he was referring to was a 42-19 Mt. SAC win over the Cougars in the 2014 season opener at Cougar Stadium.

COC's 2015 defense was having none of that.

The Cougars intercepted four passes Saturday, three in the second half.

COC sophomore safety Isaiah Foster, who missed most of the 2013 season with a foot injury and then redshirted in 2014, picked off two of those passes.

"For me this is as good as it might get. It could be better (though)," Foster said of his return. "We practice, practice, practice, and it pays off. They say practice makes perfect, and we were close."

COC linebacker and Hart High graduate Garrett Updegraft recorded seven tackles in leading a Cougars' attack that pressured Mt. SAC's passers and stopped its runners at seemingly all the right times.

Mounties quarterback Eban Jackson completed 19-of-39 passes in the game for 155 yards with three interceptions. Aaren Vaughns led the way on the ground for Mt. SAC, rushing for 44 yards on six carries. He also caught four passes for 25 yards.

The Mounties managed 332 total yards but ultimately couldn't overcome four turnovers and 107 penalty yards.

"They had a great plan, and they executed," said Mt. SAC head coach Robert Jastrab, whose team normally plays at Hilmer Lodge Stadium on Mt. SAC's campus. "They kicked our butts."

Despite upsetting the team ranked No. 2 in the JCGridiron.com "Dirty Thirty" national junior college rankings, Iacenda said the Cougars still have more to do to lift COC to national prominence. But, he said, Saturday was a start.

"Being mediocre is never acceptable," said Iacenda, whose team went a combined 12-9 in his first two seasons as head coach in '13 and '14. "This is the way COC is supposed to play football."

Photo by Jesse Munoz

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