When you first walk into the stadium at Cerritos College you might think you’re on a Division 1 college campus. There’s a new turf field, state of the art track and plenty of seating on both sides. If the CIF ever needs another site to hold a Final they should give Cerritos a call. Sometimes Junior College football flies under the radar, but having seen the facilities at ELAC, Citrus and now especially Cerritos I could think of a lot worse places to spend two years playing football.
Carlos Arredondo, who was at the 605 All-Star Game watching the action Saturday night, told us he wanted to be part of “The Mid.” We advised him to wait a few years until his football playing days over and he agreed. He also agreed to send us all the stats, and notes for ELAC football this year so we can get the Huskies some coverage.
Arredondo, in case you haven’t heard, will be spending Saturdays this fall playing for ELAC after transferring from Cerritos.
Aaron Cantu, who will be Arredondo’s quarterback this fall, threw a pair of touchdown passes to lead the West to a 23-16 overtime win over the East at the 605 Game. He also brought home the MVP award.
Cantu will play his last game as high school player June 24 in the Hall of Fame Game at West Covina High School. Covina’s Darryl Thomas is coaching the East and Ryan Maddox will coach the West.
Richard Valencia of Paramount had a chance to win the game in regulation but his 38 yard field goal attempt was blocked. It was hard to see exactly who got the hand up but after further review, it appeared to be former Alhambra and La Habra player Vai Peko.
Peko wasn’t hard to recognize at the game. He was the one with the Troy Polamalu locks flowing out of the back of his helmet.
Norwalk’s Eliijhaa Penny looks like he’s been spending more than his fair share of time in the weight room since the season ended. But although he broke off a couple of runs of 10 yards or more he was never able to get completely untracked against the stingy West defense.
The East looked much bigger along the front lines but the West held their own in the trenches. Give a lot of credit to Schurr’s Albert “Rhino” Perez.
After seeing the number of players representing these schools in the 605, Barker and I were thinking we should add Gahr and Downey to the Mid Valley coverage mix.
It was cool to see the two Andrews from La Serna hook up one more time. Buenrostro hit Rosales on a six yard touchdown late in the fourth quarter to ultimately send the game into overtime.
It was a great game. The West jumped out to a two score lead early in the fourth and the East fought back to force overtime. And it was great to be covering a football game again after a six month layoff. That being said I have a couple of complaints.
I had to pay seven bucks for a program but there was a lot of good information in it so I can live with that. What I can’t live with is a penalty on every other play. Is it really necessary to throw a flag for off sides on every kick off? Holding, off sides, illegal motion, roughing the passer, illegal substitution, blocking in the back, late hit, early hit, wrong color of socks, cleats untied…I lost track…and unfortunately they lost some of the fans also who filed out before the three hour marathon concluded.
It’s an All-Star game…let them play.
That’s my principle.
Tim can be reached at tim@midvalleysports.com.
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