Impressive first half but Jags fall asleep after halftime

Game played Saturday, Sept. 20 2014

With an 11 point lead at the half San Jose City College came out quite against host Monterey Peninsula College losing 35-24 after giving up 29 points to the Lobos in the second half handing the Jag’s their second loss of the season, Saturday, Sept. 20 in Monterey. After scoring 41 points the week before, the Jags came out with a full head of steam.
MPC’s first drive of the game ended with a blocked field goal attempt, by Jaguar’s freshman linebacker Jonah Guary.
A successful 7 play, 72 yard march downfield finished off with a 25 yard field goal made by freshman kicker Robert Bowles. “ We started off really strong,” Bowlles said.” We came out fighting.”
On MPC’s first drive in the second quarter Lobo’s sophomore quarterback Keon Marsh was intercepted by Jag sophomore linebacker Christian Paolinetti. Sprinting 29 yards down field, Paolinetti scored San Jose City’s first defensive touchdown in 2014. Jag’s Head Coach Carlton Connor, a former Arena Football secondary coach for the San Jose Sabercats was impressed with the linebackers performance. “Christian did a great job at dropping into his zone, doing what he’s been coached to do and he reached out and grabbed one,” Connors said. Paolinetti’s score would end the Jag’s stellar defensive performance, after forcing a total of five turnovers from Monterey in the first two quarters. The first time this season the Jags had held an opposing offense under 20 points by halftime. San Jose City led 17-6. When the Jags came out for the second half, both offense and defense struggled to find a rhythm. “We just stalled, we couldn’t get some drives going and made some mistakes here and there, whether it would be a penalty or a dropped ball, against a good team like that we can’t make those mistakes,” connor said. After forcing SJCC three-and-out in it’s first drive of the half, Monterey was called for a roughing the kicker penalty giving the ball back to the Jags. With showing some life, Rivera would connect with Jag’s sophomore receiver Kirby Lipscomb for a 26 yard gain. Only to lose the opportunity and turned it over on downs. Lobo freshman running back Jacob Robante would take over from there scoring his first touchdowns in the second half. Robante finished with 189 rushing yards in the game and his walked away with his first three scores for the freshman this season. The San Jose City College never looked on the same page in the second half.
Freshman running back Gabe Davis feels they have a few things to adjust before it’s week four matchup at home against Los Medanos College at Jargar Stadium, Saturday, Sept 22. “Communication is a big thing for us especially, running backs have to find the holes, receivers got to catch the ball,” Davis said. ” We must win our 1-on-1 matchups and as long as we do that we can move forward.”