Pirates, Dons square off for Victory Flag on Saturday

COSTA MESA -- The Orange Coast College football team will return to action on Saturday and will see an old, familiar face in the form of longtime-rival Santa Ana College, beginning at 6 p.m. at Eddie West Field.

This will be the 67th meeting between the Pirates and Dons dating back to 1948. OCC holds the all-time series lead, 34-32, with the Dons winning last year, 56-14 to claim the traditional "Victory Flag" away from the Pirates.

As for Saturday's tilt, both teams are look up at the American Metro Division with SAC at 2-5 overall (1-1 in division play) and the Pirates 1-6 (0-2). A win is crucial for both teams at this point, as well as claiming bragging rights for the next year until the 2023 matchup takes place.

The Pirates showed a much more balanced attack against Glendale College last week, throwing for 281 yards, while rushing for 176 yards. Quarterback Baylor Ayres completed 16-of-31 passes with three touchdowns, while J.P. Segura anchored the ground game with 154 rushing yards on 31 carries and one touchdown. Segura ranks sixth among all SCFA rushers with 640 yards for the season and is just one of four backs to average over 100 yards per game.

For the second straight week, Jake Hall showed who the defensive leader was on the Pirates, racking up nine tackles with one tackle for loss and three QB hurries. Teammate Nathaniel Lyken also stepped up and shared the top tackling honor with Hall with nine tackles of his own.

As for the Dons, the defending American Metro champs are heading into Saturday's game following a 35-7 loss to Citrus College. Sophomore quarterback Ceasar Ayala has been strong this year with 1,264 passing yards and 13 touchdowns, but with seven interceptions. In fact, four different SAC players found themselves behind the center at some point of last week's game so it could be QB-by-committee afternoon for the Dons.

Handling the majority of the rushing plays for the Dons has been sophomore Jamiel Henning, who has gained 241 yards on 50 carries, but the SAC running game has struggled to a 2.3 yards-per-carry average and just two rushing TDs in 2022.

If the Dons are to have success on Saturday, it will come through the air, with receivers Kristian Constantine and Kyran Hayes being the main targets. Constantine has caught a team-best 39 passes for 430 yards and five TDs, while Hayes has 34 receptions for a team-best 476 yards and seven TDs.

From 2010-2015 the Pirates and Dons owned the Victory Flag three times each. Santa Ana won three of the first four matchups and Coast won in 2014 and 2015 before the teams stopped playing each other due to scheduling and realignment conflicts.

The renewed tradition began 11 years ago when current OCC Sports Information Director Tony Altobelli and former SAC Sports Information Director (now current OCC Athletics Director) Jason Kehler wanted to bring something special to this neighborhood battle that began back in 1948.

"We knew that this game (in 2010), especially going into the 60^th matchup, needed something special," Kehler recalled. "After talking about different trophy concepts, we both realized the answer was in the history of each program ... Victory Flags. From there, it was just a matter of making a design that made sense. And while the Victory Flag may need some explanation, I think we ultimately met our goal!"

The history of the OCC/SAC Victory Flag concept began back in the infancy of the rivalry. In the 1950s, both teams had their own Victory Flag and year in and year out, those flags were the targets of each other's program heading into their big game. The longtime "Voice of OCC", Jim Carnett, described what that game and that week leading up to the game was like in an "Orange Slices" Column from 2007 ... 

"OCC's football team hosted Santa Ana College in the regular-season football finale on Friday evening, Nov. 22, 1957. OCC took a 7-1-0 season record into the contest and the Dons were 7-0-1. The winner would be crowned Eastern Conference champion and most likely would be accorded a Junior Rose Bowl invitation. Enthusiasm for the contest was at a fever pitch.

The OCC-SAC rivalry had been fierce for a decade, and pranks were the order of the day for every renewal of the series. But things got slightly out of hand in '57.

A hundred Santa Ana College students stormed OCC's campus the week of the game. They set off fire alarms, and went joy riding in a campus vehicle. The Costa Mesa Police Dept. was called, and every officer on duty that night responded. Three OCC cows were stolen.he Sunday prior to the game, four Santa Ana students burned the initials "SAC" into the Pirate Stadium turf. OCC student body president, Don Brown, reported Monday morning that two of the SAC culprits had been apprehended and were suspended from school. On Monday evening of Big Game Week, OCC students raised a "Beat Santa Ana" banner on the flagpole on the Don campus. They greased the pole on their way down, making it more than a little difficult to remove.

Later in the week, two brave OCC students "appropriated" – in mid-day – the Don Victory Flag from the Santa Ana Student Center. On Wednesday evening, a hundred Santa Ana College students gathered on Balboa Island to publicly express their contempt for OCC. The surly crowd was dispersed by the Newport Beach Police Department.

But actually, things began to simmer weeks before the game, according to a Barnacle editorial that ran during Big Game Week.

"Several weeks ago, students from Santa Ana College came onto our campus in broad daylight, walked up to the mast in front of the Student Center and, surrounded by scores of Pirates, calmly lowered our victory flag and made their escape, flag and all," the editorial stated in its detailed description.

The later Pirate raid on the SAC Student Center appeared to be nothing less than a tactical rejoinder.

"This was clever, it took nerve and it created school spirit," the editorial continued, referring to the bold Pirate raid. "One had only to walk into the Student Center to feel it. Getting back the flag was the main topic of discussion everywhere. When more Santa Ana students invaded the campus a few days later they were caught and held for ransom. 'We want the flag back or you lose your hair,' they were told. The flag was returned and they were released, complete with hair. This is school spirit and it's great. Nobody was hurt."The week of the game, many men on OCC's campus expressed their Pirate solidarity and pride by submitting to a shearing dispensed by students armed with scissors and clippers. Crew cuts suddenly became THE fashion statement of the day.

But, what about the game? The Pirates nipped the Dons, 13-7, before 9,000 raucous fans at Pirate Stadium. OCC was up 13-0 in the third quarter, and Santa Ana didn't mount a scoring drive until the final few minutes of the contest. The Dons scored with less than a minute to play.

Just how sweet was the victory?

"Winning the Santa Ana game and coming across Diamond Head (during a sailing trip) have been the biggest thrills of my life," said 19-year-old OCC student, Dave Grant. Dave Grant? That name's been heard a few times in these parts! Yes, it was the very same Dave who, 32 years later, would become the college's sixth president."

"I know this is 2021 and times are different at both campuses, but these are still two schools separated by only a few miles, with years of football tradition between them," Altobelli said. "In my opinion, this rivalry should be right up there with us against Golden West and their rivalry with Fullerton ... and not just in football. Jason and I wanted to do something memorable for that 60th matchup and we managed to create something that hopefully not only means something special between the two schools, but also will be around long after Jason and I off to retirement many years from now."