TORRANCE TRIBUNE November 10, 2016 Page 3 Trojans, Bruins Headed in Opposite Directions By Adam Serrao Both the USC Trojans and the UCLA Bruins headed into this year’s regular season highly regarded. The Bruins, more specifically, were “The Trojans will look to continue doing special things but will truly be tested coming up.” even projected to win the Pac-12 South outright. Now that a few games have been played, the rightful standings of the teams are beginning to shake themselves out. The Trojans may have started the year off slowly, but they are quickly putting all of their talent together to help score victories. The Bruins, on the other hand, have taken preseason projections and greatly disappointed, heading in the complete opposite direction of the Trojans. With last week’s victory over the Oregon Ducks, the USC Trojans brought their winning streak to five games in a row, clearly hitting the highest gear that they have been at all season on offense. Over their last five games, the Trojans, behind starting quarterback Sam Darnold, have averaged 40 points per game while completely annihilating opponents in the process. The way that the team looks now is in stark contrast to how they started off the year. USC lost three of its first four games, bringing grim feelings to all those who root for the Cardinal and Gold in Southern California. Darnold had 309 yards passing and two touchdowns against Oregon, leading his team to victory. As good as the quarterback has been playing recently though, he may not even be the MVP on the team. After rushing for a careerhigh 223 yards against Cal two weeks ago, USC running back Ronald Jones broke loose with four rushing touchdowns against Oregon. The mark tied a school single-game record. “I hold my breath every time he touches it because I know there is a chance he can go all the way,” Trojans head coach Clay Helton said. “Between himself and a very effecting offensive line, they are doing some special things right now.” The Trojans will look to continue doing special things but will truly be tested coming up. A matchup against No. 5 in the nation, Washington, looms this week before they finish the year off with rivalry matchups against UCLA and Notre Dame, respectively. UCLA has had the exact opposite season that USC has had. After beginning the year winning two of their first three games and three of their first five, the Bruins have run into a wall. Four straight losses while giving up an average of 30.5 points per game has seen UCLA slip into fifth place in Pac-12 South standings, above only Arizona. A season that began with such high hopes has now taken a turn for the worse as the Bruins will look to finish the season off on a positive note against Oregon State, USC and Cal. The Bruins latest loss was last Thursday night against Colorado. It was an extremely sloppy game mired with penalties and turnovers and at the end of things, there was a UCLA loss. Thirteen penalties for a total of 96 yards and a total of just 210 yards on offense for the night capped off the disappointing loss for the Bruins. To add insult to injury, it was announced before the game that UCLA starting quarterback Josh Rosen would miss the rest of the season due to a shoulder injury. With their recently slumping record and a four game losing streak, the 3-6 Bruins will have to win out in their final three games of the season to even qualify for a bowl game. While the Trojans certainly still have much to play for, the Bruins may be best served to focus their attention on their Week 11 rivalry matchup with the Trojans. In a season that has been lost and filled with discontent, a win against your biggest rival can certainly do a lot to sooth some pains. Naturally, without Rosen, the task of taking out the Trojans may be even more difficult than originally planned. Dating back to last season, the Trojans still lead in the all-time series between the two teams with a 45-31-7 record. While the Trojans hold the advantage, though, the Bruins have won three of the last four matchups. USC won last year by a final score of 40-21. Two teams that began the season with such high expectations have clearly failed to live up to what everyone thought they would be. While USC began the season on the wrong foot and fell victim to a hard schedule, the Bruins came out of the gates looking good. Recently, things have turned themselves completely upside down. Neither the Trojans nor the Bruins have any hopes of a National Championship, but with all of the momentum that USC has been gaining lately, they may just find themselves in a big bowl game at the end of the year. UCLA, on the other hand, has only one big game remaining on their schedule and that’s against the Trojans next week. While neither team may be taking home a trophy this year, there will still be much intrigue surrounding the coming three weeks. • Up and Adam Regular Season Ends with Pair of Rivalries By Adam Serrao It all came down to one game. North High versus South High with a chance to advance to this year’s playoffs on the line. The loser? Out of contention. With a rivalry game in the City of Torrance, it doesn’t get much better than that. For North High, though, it did get much better. A 49-10 blowout win over their rivals from South not only secured a third place finish in the Pioneer League, but also qualified the team for a shot at this year’s CIF Southern Section playoffs. It’s always a difficult task to win on the road in a rivalry game, but the Saxons and their head coach Todd Croce were clearly up to the task last Friday night. Though the game between the two innercity rivals turned out to be somewhat of a blowout, South kept things close early on. Anthony Bjazevich hit receiver Kohl Kutsch with a 15-yard pass late in the first quarter for the Spartans only touchdown of the game. At the time, it cut into North’s already hefty lead, making the score 12-7. Unfortunately for South, Malik Welch plays for the Saxons. Not only did Welch take the opening kickoff 90-yards to the house for the first touchdown of the game, but he also returned another kickoff 70 yards for a touchdown and had an interception on defense with over 70 yards rushing on offense. “We just tried to have fun as a team,” Welch said after the game. “South is a very good team, but we all played our best today. I just executed tonight and my teammates blocked well for me.” A 39-point blowout would be fun for any team, let alone the Saxons, who secured third place in a rivalry game win. Welch wasn’t the only one producing for North. Starting quarterback Glenn Searcy added to his team’s huge advantage by throwing for a 10-yard touchdown to cap off the first quarter. “Now we have the chance to make the playoffs and live another day,” Searcy said of his team’s win. The quarterback threw for two touchdowns on the night and rushed for a 2-yard score at the end of the first half to give the Saxons a 26-7 lead at the break. Despite the team’s loss, South head coach Matt Mishler was optimistic about the future in his first year as the captain of the team. “Considering what we faced with all the injuries we had, that we were able to battle and have a chance to make the playoffs is a credit to the team and how they fought,” Mishler explained. “We are pretty pleased. There are a lot of things we can build on for the future.” With a young team in tow, Mishler and the Spartans certainly have time to grow and should start seeing the results as early as next season. For this year, however, South (4-6, 2-3) finishes in fourth place in the Pioneer League and out of the playoffs. The Saxons (6-4, 3-2) end the season with momentum. They have now won three games in a row to finish as the third place team in the standings. West High vs. Torrance High The West High Warriors may have missed out on first place in the Pioneer League this season, but they certainly haven’t lost any steam heading into this year’s playoffs. A steady day on offense combined with a fantastic defensive effort lead to a 30-14 victory for West High last Friday night at Zamperini Stadium in Torrance. The victory not only assures the Warriors of a second place finish in the standings, but also secures a playoff spot for a team that has now won five out of their last six games. While the Warriors have been experiencing success, the Torrance Tartars have been the victims of an extremely disappointing season. Out of their 10 games on the year, the Tartars have managed to only win one, which came on the road against a winless Centennial Apaches team. Things didn’t get any easier for head coach Rock Hollis and his team when they took on West. The Warriors kept the Tartars scoreless through three full quarters while racking up 23 points of their own to take a huge lead going into the final quarter of play. The Tartars finally got their first score of the game with eight minutes remaining in the final quarter, but by that time the Warriors were comfortably in control of the game. A special teams touchdown got the scoring started for the Warriors when Dutch Silverlake took a punt back 60 yards to the end zone in the first quarter. By halftime, it was 13-0 and in the fourth quarter, EJ Hatter put the game well out of reach with a 1-yard rushing touchdown to bring the score to 29-0. The Warriors handily won the game and will now turn their attention to the playoffs. West (7-3, 4-1) will hit the road to take on the Ocean League’s Lawndale Cardinals (6-4, 4-1) in the first round as the team looks to keep their late-season momentum rolling. The Tartars (1-9, 1-4), on the other hand, will head home looking forward to taking a big step forward next season. • DMV from front page failures in such a short period of time, the media were told. The department had never experienced a technological chain of events like it, spokesman Jaime Garza told reporters in Sacramento. The California DMV wasn’t using industry best practices to avoid losing both the frontend and backup systems simultaneously, according to published reports. The primary and the recovery systems should be kept apart and on separate power supplies, technology experts say. The department reportedly kept both the main and backup systems in the same hardware cabinet. Again, it’s uncertain whether the halted modernization project would have addressed the issue or made a difference. The DMV pledged to conduct a full The DMV IT modernization program began in 2006 after an earlier project called Info/ California was called a “hopeless failure” after $44 million were spent. What was supposed to be a five-year, $28 million effort lasted for seven years. The size of the project grew until the projected costs were $170 million over the original budget. State officials criticized the DMV brass for poor management of the project and for lacking computer- technology experience. The embarrassing episode led to a full investigation by lawmakers. The DMV is offering to waive late fees for vehicle registrations that could not be processed during the outage. Vehicle owners must file a waiver form or write a letter to the department asking for penalty forgiveness for missing the due date to renew a vehicle registration. The DMV charges a 10 percent penalty for being up to 10 days late and 20 percent for up to four weeks past due. DMV offices will be closed Friday, Nov. 11 in observance of Veteran’s Day. •
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