Long Beach City College Head Coach Brett Peabody reached his 50th career win Saturday night as the Vikings came out on top in a dominant victory over the Moorpark Raiders, Vikings advance to a 6-2 overall record and are undefeated in conference(3-0).
The Vikings got off to a hot start in the first quarter with wide receiver Zion Bowens getting back to back touchdowns and 70 yards receiving in the first quarter, one of them being the longest completion of the night on a 42-yard touchdown pass from quarterback West.
The Vikings were leading 21-0 after one quarter.
The Moorpark Raiders did make a push for a comeback as they got on the scoreboard in the second quarter making it a 21-7 game, but it wasn’t long until the Vikings came back with another touchdown of their own from wide receiver Zack Leets off a 23 yard pass from West to hold the lead 28-7.
The Raiders answered with a drive of their own going 4 plays for 71 yards scoring another touchdown off a 29 yard run from running back Tyree Morrison making it 28-14.
Viking linebacker D’Anthony Jones shined as he recovered a Raider fumble in the end zone resulting in a Viking touchdown with 5 minutes to go in the half. Jones touchdown gave LBCC a promising 38-14 lead.
“We just gotta clean up the little mistakes and the penalties, stuff like that and I think we’d dominate these next two games,” Jones added after the game.
With 1:53 left to go in the half, the Vikings scored again with a 7 yard touchdown pass to wide receiver Julian Woodard going up 45-14, the Vikings offense was clicking.
“We just gotta keep coming out executing and not giving up turnovers,” Quarterback West added after his season-high performance racking 5 touchdowns along with 210 passing yards.
Despite the final score being 58-35 Vikings, the Raiders actually did lead the game in time of possession 32 minutes to LBCC’s 27.
The Viking defense had 3 interceptions as well as 8 sacks on Saturday, but Coach Peabody still believed they didn’t scratch the surface of what the defense could potentially be.
“I think we have one of the best defenses in the country and, to me, we didn’t quite meet that standard.”
The victory over the Raiders marked win number 50 for Coach Peabody and the team congratulated him for it after the game.
“The goal when we came here was to get this program back in contention and I feel like we’ve done that for the most part. The goal that’s still out there is that state title that the college hasn’t won since ‘95 and that’s the ultimate goal.”
The Vikings will be playing this Saturday Nov. 9 at Canyons with the conference title on the line.