TORRANCE TRIBUNE December 21, 2017 Page 5 Chargers Lose Control of Division By Adam Serrao Right when the Los Angeles Chargers began to instill a bit of faith in their fan base, they traveled to Kansas City to take on the Chiefs and put up a dud. With a 30-13 loss at the hands of their rivals from the AFC West, the Chargers not only suffered their first defeat in their last five games played, but also gave up control of the division with just two games remaining. Leading up to this game--the team’s biggest matchup of the season--the Chargers had won seven of their last nine games and were being heralded as one of the best teams in the AFC. Now, with the loss, Los Angeles must win out if they want any chance at even making the playoffs at all. Arrowhead Stadium has its own way of making all opponents who take the field shrink down and gradually disappear. Just ask the Oakland Raiders, who flew to Kansas City the week before and yet failed to show up to the game once the play clock started ticking. Philip Rivers and company experienced a similar fate last Saturday night at Arrowhead. With a top spot for the AFC West on the line, Rivers threw three interceptions and the Chargers surrendered 20 straight points to take a 17-point loss. “Maybe we made this game bigger than it really was,” Los Angeles coach Anthony Lynn explained after the loss. “As a young team mixed with some veterans, we have to mature and get our guys ready to play. And that’s on me.” As the loudest stadium in all of football, Arrowhead and its Chiefs fans have their own way of making teams nothing short of a bit uneasy. After already experiencing a season of highs and lows, Charger fan themselves are now experiencing that same uneasy feeling as their 7-7 record means that the team no longer controls its own fate for a playoff spot and an AFC West crown. With the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders as the only two teams remaining on the schedule for L.A., it’s quite possible that Los Angeles can win out and find themselves sitting pretty with a 9-7 record on the season. Even that record, however, would necessitate that the team receive some help in the form of losses from other playoff hopefuls like the Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans and Buffalo Bills, amongst others--or even see the Chiefs lose both of their last two remaining games. “Our playoffs have begun,” Lynn continued. “And there’s no absolute that we’re going to the playoffs, even if we win the next two games. But if we don’t [win], we damn sure ain’t going.” Unfortunately for the Chargers, the football game isn’t the only thing that the team lost. As one of the healthiest teams in the league, a matchup against their interdivisional rivals certainly took its toll on the roster. During the game, Los Angeles lost starting linebacker Denzel Perryman, defensive tackle Corey Liuget and safety Adrian Phillips. They also witnessed star wide receiver Keenan Allen get carted to the locker room with a back injury and saw injuries occur to linemen Joe Barksdale and Russell Okung. The Chargers began the season by taking losses in each of their first four games. Since that time, the team went on to win three in a row and seven out of their next nine as analysts around the NFL began to qualify Los Angeles as one of the league’s most impressive up-and-coming teams that even had the chance to challenge the likes of the vaunted New England Patriots. Rivers was playing like a man on fire, the team wasn’t turning the ball over, they weren’t making mistakes and the defense was playing as one of the top units in the leagues. That all changed in just one game. The Chargers turned the ball over four times, with Rivers leading that charge. They were penalized nine times for 61 yards while missing tackles and even gave up three touchdowns and 30 points--the highlight of which was a 60-yard grab by Tyreek Hill as he zipped past Casey Hayward and flashed the “peace sign” while on his way into the end zone for seven. “We kind of fell apart in a sense,” Rivers said. “We just didn’t execute. Obviously, give them credit. But just what we talked during the last four games, not turning the ball over and getting takeaways, we were just the opposite of that today.” One of Rivers’ worst games of the season couldn’t have come at a worse time. With the loss, the Chargers now--according to ESPN’s Football Power Index--have only a 17 percent chance to reach the postseason. Instead of seizing the moment last Saturday night in Kansas City, the Chargers dropped the ball, figuratively and quite literally. The Chiefs have now beaten their rivals eight straight times, but perhaps none bigger than last week’s 30-13 final that for all intents and purposes ended Los Angeles’s playoff hopes prematurely. In the end, a Chargers team that was much different from the one that its fans were getting to know and love happened to appear once again. Now the only question remaining is whether or not Rivers and company still have some fight left in them or whether they’ll roll over and fall into an abyss similar to the one that the team has experienced in seasons past. – Aserrao6@yahoo.com - @UpandAdam6 • City Council • School Board • Events Calendar • Local News BE IN THE KNOW Herald Publication is now offering FREE digital delivery of any of their community newspapers. Be the first to know about upcoming local events. IT’S EASY AND IT’S FREE! Sign up at - http://bit.ly/2fMg4Eh El Segundo Herald • Hawthorne Press Tribune • Lawndale Tribune • Torrance Tribune Local High Schools Start Soccer By Adam Serrao The beginning of the winter season symbolizes the start of boys’ high school soccer, and this year there already seems to be a slight change to the competitive balance in the Pioneer League. The South High Spartans have traditionally dominated their opponents within the division and in doing, so have also racked up numerous league championships. This year, the rest of Torrance’s teams have a chip on their respective shoulders and are looking to do anything in order to unseat the Spartans from their tradition of success. The 2017-18 season is only a few games into its commencement, but the competition between rivals already looks to be heating up. After finishing off last season with a quite average record of 9-12-2, head coach Ryan Burnett and the Torrance Tartars are looking to improve and make waves in the Pioneer League this year. Torrance’s third place finish one season ago wasn’t good enough to get the team into the playoffs. That’s something that Burnett and company are looking to change and they will go about attempting to do so with the emergence of seven juniors returning to the team from last year’s squad. One of those players is this year’s senior captain, Dylan Perez. “He’s the soul of our team,” Burnett said when speaking of Perez, who has already been off to a terrific start this season. In the Tartars’ most recent match against the Mira Costa Mustangs, Perez scored his team’s only two goals in what turned out to be a losing effort, but was undoubtedly the reason why Torrance even made it a close match at all. “I think it was a good learning game for us,” Burnett continued. “We didn’t hang our heads, we went right back at them and that’s a good thing for us moving forward.” Perez’s second goal in the 66th minute got the Tartars close and showed that despite winding up on the wrong side of the final score, there is no quit apparent in this year’s Torrance team. Although the Tartars lost to Mira Costa, the team has come up with a couple of nice victories in the early going to show some promise. In the first game of the season, they took it to the El Segundo Eagles and with goals by senior Ryan Brainard and junior Marcelo Rios, notched a 2-0 victory. One week later, Torrance torched the Gardena Panthers with a final of 7-1 before shutting out the Culver City Centaurs 3-0 behind goals from seniors Matis Dylan and Eddie Grados and junior D’Angelo Alva. A long season remains for the Tartars, as things are sure to heat up once league play begins towards the beginning of January. Key rivalry matchups against the likes of the West High Warriors and the North High Saxons, among others, wait as Torrance looks to stay on top of the Pioneer League standings this year. South High Head coach Chad Lagerway leads the South High Spartans into a season that is full of question marks coming off of two straight years of success. The Spartans enter 2017-18 after back-to-back Pioneer League titles. It wasn’t long ago that South reached the 2016 CIF Southern Section Division 4 final before making it to the 2017 CIF-SS Division 3 quarterfinals. Despite losing both matches, it was quite easy to realize that the Spartans were dominant. It will be a bit harder to duplicate for South as the team battles to replace a few key losses to the roster entering the year. Perhaps the biggest loss for the Spartans will be the departure of Will Hayward, who played all four seasons at South and was the unquestioned MVP of the team last year. In addition to Hayward, the Spartans will miss the presence of senior midfielder Dara Fakhfouri and senior defender David Paine, among others. The team will look to this year’s senior captain and goalkeeper Kohl Kutsch to keep them competitive throughout what is sure to be a long and trying season. So far, a record of 0-1-3 record heading into this week certainly says that they have a lot of work to do, but with plenty of games left to be played, anything can happen for the defending Pioneer League champs. West High Coming off of a 13-6-4 season that was good enough for second place in the Pioneer League last year, the West High Warriors enjoyed their first win of the regular season when they took down the Beverly Hills Normans in the first week of December. The Warriors made it to the second round of the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs last season before falling to the Camarillo Scorpions, and will look for similar success this year. The team will look to overcome the loss of senior defender Cole Prince with the return of junior midfielder Cameron Korshavn as they attempt to capture their first Pioneer League title since the 2014-15 season. North High The North High Saxons won three games all of last season and enter this year under head coach Robert Rivas already having lost two of their first three with three ties and one victory over the Hawthorne Cougars added in. The Saxons have finished in last place in the Pioneer League standings in three of their last four seasons and have not taken home a division title since the 2012-13 season. Because of their unsteady history, expectations should be held in check for the Saxons this year, but with a long way to go, Rivas and company will look to surprise some people as they begin to attempt to turn things around. – Aserrao6@yahoo.com - @UpandAdam6 •
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