Football cruises to season opening victory

ORANGE, Calif — Football returned to Wilson Field on Saturday, Sept. 3 and put on an impressive offensive show cruising to a 42-21 win over Pacific (Ore.).

The scoring got started immediately, 49 seconds in to be exact, when Tanner Mendoza took the Nathaniel Espinoza hand off five yards for the touchdown. Well, the real story of the drive was how the Panthers reached the Pacific five so quickly. 

Espinoza took the opening snap, and on his first play as a Panther, the junior raced 49 yards, almost taking it to the house. 

An electric opening for the Panthers sparked a big stand on the defensive end later in the first. 

With Pacific steadily driving down the field, the Panthers stuffed four straight run plays at the three yardline, with help from Adam Andrade and Ryan Haith on a few of those key stops.

Pacific would later tie the game, however, at the end of the quarter. 

Chapman would answer quickly, though, as a five-play 71-yard drive capped off by another Tanner Mendoza touchdown run would give the Panthers a 14-7 lead. 

Both offenses would go stagnant until the end of the half when Pacific tacked on another touchdown, evening the score. 

Espinoza, who was sidelined for the majority of the first half after his opening touchdown drive, would come back out onto the field to start the second half, and the Panthers' offense took off from there. 

Two-straight touchdown drives would push the score to 28-14. During those drives Espinoza showed off his arm finding Wyatt Hardin for a couple big completions including a 30-yard touchdown pass to the senior wide receiver. Gio Ursino's three-yard rush was the first of the touchdowns to break the initial tie.

Espinoza would finish 9-11 with 165 passing yards and a touchdown. Hardin finished with a game-high 110 receiving yards on five catches.

Chapman added two more touchdowns to seal the deal, both of the rushing variety, courtesy of Isaiah Woods and Jack Alexander to finish off a positive night for the Panther offense.

Defensively, the Panthers would allow only one touchdown in the second half, as part of four sacks from the squad. Evan Greve, Simon Hall, Harrison Donato, and Isaiah Munoz all got in on the action.

Kade Jordan led the way with 10 tackles and three Panthers tallied six apiece, Andrade, Haith and Hall.

The Panthers will be on the road next week to play in a non conference game against Cal Lutheran.

By Joe Perrino

Assistant SID / Recreation Sports Manager

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