For a half, Carson just too strong

The Colts are sharp early before letting up, but they still crush San Fernando to set up a battle with Dorsey.

Bob Holtzman
Daily Breeze

Carson coach Mike Christensen might not know what to do with himself if his football team played an entire 48 minutes like it did for the first 22½ on Thursday night.

Through Carson's first four offensive possessions, you could count the amount of mistakes the team made on one hand.

That the seventh-seeded Colts looked human the rest of the way mattered little to the outcome, a 39-6 win at home over No. 10 seed San Fernando in the first round of the L.A. City Section playoffs.

Carson advances to meet No. 2 seed Dorsey, a 27-7 winner over Granada Hills, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Rancho Cienega Park.

"When we're good, we're good," Christensen told his team after the game. "But it seems like we'll decide, 'That's enough.' And we've got to finish."

Christensen was referring to Carson taking a 30-0 lead before it let San Fernando score in the final minute of the first half. He called the second-half letdown a "reoccurring thing," In every loss this season, Carson (8-3) held a lead.

San Fernando (7-3) must have felt like it was in the middle of a stampede at the start of the game. Carson scored on its first four drives and also scored on a safety when Emmanuel Brown sacked San Fernando quarterback Rashaad Reynolds in the end zone.

"We're in good shape when we play well," said Carson linebacker Joel Deayon, who led the team with nine tackles. "When everyone does their job, we're as good as anybody."

Carson running back Jack Sula had 179 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries and caught an 8-yard touchdown pass to pace the offense.

The Colts rushed for 279 yards as a team. Steven Boyd added 43 yards and a touchdown on six carries. Mike Cortez had 37 yards on three carries before he re-injured his right knee, which suffered torn ligaments last year.

But Carson wanted to show more balance in its offense and went to quarterback Dominique Blackman. The junior completed 8 of 15 passes for 107 yards and a touchdown. He also had two touchdown runs.

Blackman was just a few catches away from a big game. Three dropped passes, including two that would have likely been touchdowns, kept his numbers to a modest amount.

"We'll just have to make sure we get out to practice earlier to work on that," Blackman said. "I'll make sure my guys are using their eyes and make sure they catch and tuck. We need to keep working on that."

Both Christensen and Blackman talked about how Carson doesn't want to take its run game for granted, especially as the defenses get tougher.

"If teams aren't smart enough to put eight, nine guys in the box, then I don't know what coaches are thinking," Blackman said.

San Fernando saw how tough it is when a defense makes you one-dimensional.

The Tigers were missing their starting running back Rian Williams and could never develop a solid running game.

San Fernando managed to gain 87 yards on 22 carries. Forced to the air, Reynolds completed 12 of 29 passes for 134 yards, with a touchdown and two interceptions.

Carson applied the pressure, sacking him twice and forcing a fumble at the Carson 2-yard line.

"We didn't get our run going good enough," San Fernando coach Tom Hernandez said.

"So all we could do is throw, throw, throw and it's never easy to do that when it's all you've got."

Dorsey might be the No. 2 seed, but that doesn't mean Carson doesn't feel prepared to excel in the quarterfinal game.

"It doesn't matter who we play," Sula said. "See, we feel nobody can match up with us man-for-man. If we play our game, we'll be all right."