Loyola shuts down Culver City's offense in 24-7 loss

You could feel the excitement in the stands and on Centaur sideline before the game. After the Culver City High School football team scored 72 points against San Jacinto two weeks ago the anticipation was in the air for another explosive night for their offense. But what a difference a week can make. Loyola held the Centaur offense to just 6 points in a 24-6 loss last Friday night at Loyola.

"I thought Loyola did a good job of neutralizing our offense," said Culver City head football coach Jahmal Wright after practice this week. "They really put a lot of pressure on our quarterback. "Also, their defensive line controlled the line of scrimmage and that really interrupted our offense."

That's the bad news. The good news is the Centaur defense came to play after giving up 63 points against San Jacinto. After giving up 21 first half points to the Loyola Cubs, they held them to three points in the second half. "I thought the defense did a good job considering that they were on the field a lot," said Wright. "The defense had a very good bounce back game and Keenan Carter did a great job. He showed his senior leadership on the defensive line." Carter had five tackles for losses, two sacks and eight total tackles.

The few times the Centaurs were able to move the ball against Loyola, the Cubs seem to know where to be at the right time to stop their momentum. "I thought we had some chances to get back in the game, but our offense had a hard time getting into a rhythm," said Wright. "We had problems running the ball and we lacked our usual explosive plays and that was the main reason we did not score more points, but I also want to give Loyola credit for coming up with a good game plan."

Up next for the 1-1 Centaurs is the game on Friday against 0-2 Palmdale. This will be the Culver City's first home game this season and kick off is set for 7 p.m.