Conference play kicks off for Pirates this week at Citrus

COSTA MESA -- Now the fun REALLY begins for the Orange Coast College football team as the Pirates open American Metro League play this Saturday afternoon at Citrus College, beginning at 1 p.m.

Coast (1-3) joins its new conference opponents for the first time this season and according to OCC head coach Bubba Gonzalez, the Pirates will need to bring their "A" game to the field week in and week out.

"From what I've seen out there, it's going to be a tough league this year with every team having a shot to win on any given week," Gonzalez said. "Every team has big-time players and I'm seeing teams put up some pretty big numbers in our league. It's going to be a grind for us every single week so we have to prepare for tough, hard-fought games every time we get out there."

Leading things off for the Pirates in league play will be the Citrus College Owls, who enter Saturday's matchup with a record of 2-3. After opening the season with a pair of wins over Chaffey College (21-16) and College of the Desert (62-32), but after that, the Owls have labored, dropping three straight to Grossmont (42-39), Pasadena City (30-27) and Antelope Valley (31-21).

"I think we match up better with Citrus than we did last week against Grossmont, but I liked our matchup with Grossmont as well," Gonzalez said. "They like to get their athletes involved and they want to score real quick, so we need to be prepared for that type of offensive gameplan. If we can do the simple things well and everyone does their job, we will be in a great position to have success, not only for this week, but for weeks to come."

Last week against the Griffins, the big plays haunted the Pirates for the first time all season in a 54-23 loss on Saturday inside LeBard Stadium. "It's a group that's still learning out there," Gonzalez said. "I think last week, we were a bit lax in doing our jobs and some gaps opened up, allowing for Grossmont to find openings and they made big plays. It's something we definitely can fix and I'm confident in our guys that we can adjust and adapt."

One real bright spot for the Pirates came from the offensive line, led by the front six of Iziah Morton, Eriq Hilliard, Nathan Maneafaiga, Jeremy Caballero, Kahu'ike Lorenzo and Jonah Kuresa. The Pirate front line not only opened up holes for the OCC running backs (who combined for 195 yards on the ground), but they also helped give time to the OCC passing game, which saw vast improvements in Week 5 vs. Week 4.

"We've got some of those guys who are banged up at this stage of the season, but they continue to battle for us," Gonzalez said. "They're learning every single week and once game time hits, they push aside whatever ails them and they play through it. They're really starting to understand what we're trying to accomplish as an offense and they were a big reason why we found some success. I remember in 2019, our offense was almost none and compared to this year, we really have seen improvements. We are running the ball great this year -- anything over 150 yards a game as a team is outstanding -- and a lot of that has to do with our O-Line giving us that opportunity."

The aforementioned running game has been led by the trio of J.P. Segura-Queijeiro (45 carries, 278 yards, two touchdowns), David Hernandez (51-207) and Colin Gregg (30-153). While the yards are piling up, Gonzalez would still love to see more red zone success. "We've been getting good, long drives, but we still need to do a better job of finishing once we are in that goal-line area," Gonzalez said. "As a group, the offense is starting to click and have fun and that's what you want to see is your guys having fun out there. We tell them that our time on this field is short ... you never know when your time is up as far as playing the game goes, so enjoy every single opportunity you get on the football field."

For the Owls, quarterback Adam Urena leads the offense with 1,151 passing yards and 10 touchdowns on 98-of-158 passing. Running back Kasmir Dina (47 carries, 385 yards, 3 TDs) is averaging over 8 yards per carry. Also look for No. 2 QB Trent Young to see some action in certain situations. The freshman QB has 206 passing yards, but is also a weapon with his legs, rushing for 117 yards and four touchdowns.

Citrus has seven different pass-catchers with 10-or-more receptions, including team leaders Jeremiah Flores (17-197, 2 TDs) and Robert Vega (17-219, 1 TD).

OCC's next home game will be on Saturday, Oct. 30 against Santa Ana, beginning at 1 p.m.