Early mistakes doom Pirates in loss to Dons

SANTA ANA -- The Orange Coast College football team was its own worst enemy during Saturday afternoon's 38-16 Southern Conference loss to Santa Ana College, played at Santa Ana Stadium.

Early turnovers and missed scoring opportunities helped pave the way for the Dons to jump ahead and never look back as the Pirates dropped to 2-5 overall, 0-3 in conference. With the win, Santa Ana improves to 2-5, 1-2 in conference.

The tone of the game was set on the opening drive for the Pirates when quarterback Jack Foster tried to force a shovel-pass and was picked off by Kevin Joseph, who returned the interception 29 yards for a touchdown, putting the Dons ahead 7-0 just one minute into the game.

Coast settled down and later in the quarter, the Pirates got inside Dons' territory before Joseph again stepped in the way of a Foster pass for his second interception of the afternoon.

Early in the second quarter, Santa Ana capped off a 10-play, 68-yard drive when quarterback Shane Truelove scored on a 1-yard TD run on fourth down to make it 14-0.

OCC missed on two long field goal attempts before cutting into the lead at 14-3 when Griff Amies connected on a 38-yard FG with 4:46 left in the first half.

It stayed that score through the first half, before the Dons' offense began to click on all cylinders. On their first four series of the second half, Santa Ana scored three touchdowns and connected on a field goal for 24 unanswered points and a 38-3 lead.

Foster, who was replaced by Cameron Biedgoly in the middle stages of the game, came back in the fourth quarter and managed to find some success down the stretch. He connected with D.J. McFadden with a 21-yard touchdown with 9:45 left to make it 38-10 and hooked up with Spencer Ludin on a 24-yard touchdown with just over one minute left to close out the scoring. 

Foster finished the afternoon with 107 yards passing with two touchdowns and two interceptions on 13-of-24 passing. Coast was held to 256 yards of total offense, while the balanced SAC offense racked up 354 yards of total offense (182 passing, 172 rushing).

Truelove led the Dons' rushing attack with 82 yards on just seven carries to go along with his 182 yards in the air with two passing touchdowns.

Jordan Brown made the most of his two catches for the Dons, gaining 75 yards. 

The Pirates will return to action on Saturday at home against Saddleback College, beginning at 7 p.m.