Rustlers too much for Dons

COSTA MESA – Santa Ana College went into Thursday's East Conference opener armed with a potent offense; Golden West went in with a stout defense.

By the end of the evening, the Rustlers left with both.

Golden West (3-3, 1-0) racked up 422 yards of total offense to complement its fourth-ranked defense in a 30-17 victory over the Dons at Orange Coast College.

"Our defense played outstanding again," Rustlers coach Nick Mitchell said.

"The turnovers were huge for our team and demoralizing for them. That was the difference in the game."

Raymond Huizar threw for 331 yards and four scores while Jared Cohen caught a pair of touchdowns as Golden West led from start to finish.

The Rustlers forced six turnovers and held the fourth-best scoring offense in the Southern California Football Conference (41.2 points per game) to 17 points as they put an end to a three-game losing streak.

"The start of conference play gave us a chance to start over," Mitchell said.

"We felt that as long as we played the way we did in our first four games we had a chance to win."

Santa Ana's first three possessions ended with a sack/lost fumble, a punt and a second lost fumble. However, the Dons defense kept the score knotted at zero going into the second quarter.

Santa Ana (3-3, 0-1) passed on a potential 20-yard field goal on its fourth drive of the game and an interception in the end zone left the visitors with nothing to show for their longest drive of the half.

On the subsequent possession, Golden West converted a fake punt run play on fourth-and-3 in Dons territory and scored seven plays later on Huizar's 12-yard TD pass to Cohen.

For Santa Ana, Davion Orphey had 129 yards rushing.

Click here for article by Brian Whitehead