Pierce College’s football team earned a shutout victory against Los Angeles Southwest College on Saturday at Pierce’s John Shepard Stadium, improving their overall record to 2-1 as they remain undefeated at home.
The Brahmas won 45-0 after opening the game with three touchdowns in the first quarter and spreading the scoring load across the roster as 7 different players scored touchdowns.
A huge contributor for the Pierce offense was sophomore kicker Brian Gutierrez, who scored on six of seven field goal attempts.
“Everything went well,” said Gutierrez after the game. “We can only get better as weeks go by.”
With the win Pierce is now undefeated at home, which bodes well for the team, according to Gutierrez.
“We’re at home so that hypes us up…it helps a lot.”
Coming off a bye week, the team’s focal point was discipline to prevent penalties, according to head coach Efrain Martinez.
“We focused on our penalties and they were down so that was good,” said Martinez in the team’s post game celebration on the field.
Although numerous penalties were called during the game, a majority of the calls favored Pierce as they gained yards for mistakes by the Los Angeles Southwest College’s Cougars, much to the delight of Coach Martinez.
“The ones we had were more celebration penalties – guys getting excited for scoring touchdowns, not necessarily the 15 yard late hit [penalties] that kill you,” said Martinez.
With scoring coming often against the Cougars, preparation for the match was a key factor in the win.
“We had a bye week to clean up our mess and we came in with a positive attitude,” said Gutierrez. “We checked our egos.”
Although the Pierce offense scored the most points in a game thus far this season, the defense allowed the team to recover the ball and force the Cougar offense to commit errors in the pocket as Pierce’s defensive line rushed the opposing quarterbacks on multiple plays.
“Our defensive line played great,” said Martinez. “We were so much onto the ball; we were faster on defense – that’s what impressed me the most.”
With the Cougar offense out of sync, the Pierce defense made it a point to disrupt any flow L.A. Southwest looked to gain.
“Our defense has a rule to push, so they were disrupting their blocking schemes,” Martinez said. “That caused a lot of problems for them and that’s what caused their fumbles.”
Although the team mood is high coming off a shutout victory, Pierce kicker Brian Gutierrez knows the team must stay grounded as they prepare for the rest of the season.
“We’re going to look over film and clean up what we have to clean up to get better,” said Gutierrez.
With a wire to wire victory under their belts, the Brahmas look to carry their momentum into the next game.
“The shutout is what we’re going to try to carry over,” said Martinez. “If they don’t score on us they can’t win.”
The team’s next match is at West Los Angeles College on Saturday, September 29 at 1:00 p.m.