Corsairs look to rebound against Antelope Valley this Saturday

The Corsairs are coming off a bye week and are hoping to rebound against Antelope Valley this Saturday after dropping their previous matchup at Southwestern College. The bye week could not have come at a better time, as the injuries started to pile up in the loss against Southwestern, and it didn’t appear as if they we’re going to let up.

But with a week off, the Corsairs were allowed the time to focus on what they wanted to correct, as well as what they needed to do to get back on track to try and capture a fourth consecutive conference championship.

“So what we worked over the bye week is our execution, our attention to detail, our technique, our alignment assignment,” said Head Coach Gifford Lindheim. “The bye week gave us a great opportunity to really kind of perfect some of the things that we’re doing. It was a good opportunity to go up against such a formidable team. Now going into conference, I think it’s really going to help us.”

There are a lot of new faces starting on both sides of the ball this season, most notably at quarterback.

Although sophomore transfer Jake Dashnaw threw for 334 yards, and four touchdowns, adding a rushing touchdown against College of the Desert, he only managed 182 passing yards and one touchdown against a significantly better Southwestern team.

Though it was not all his fault. A quarterback is only as good as his receivers, and when the Corsairs visited Southwestern just 11 days ago, the receiving corps was not at their best as they dropped at least six passes.

“As a unit, the receiving core is growing, and we have a new quarterback who is very good, we have a group of very good quarterbacks. But we’re all kind of growing together in this whole thing,” said Coach Lindheim. “Even in the Southwestern game, we had over 500 yards of offense, but there are still a lot of plays out there. Look out if we get this thing going and minimize the mistakes that we are making.”

If there’s one thing this Corsairs football team doesn’t do, it is look past opponents, and Antelope Valley is no different.

Despite being one of the smaller schools on SMC’s schedule, Antelope valley has gotten into the habit the past few seasons of being a perennial thorn in the Corsairs boot.

After a surprisingly close game last year, SMC is spending all the necessary time preparing for a team that is apparently getting better as the season goes on.

“We have a lot of respect for Antelope Valley. They’ve had a bunch of success in their program the last couple years, and we don’t take anybody lightly,” said Lindheim. “Antelope Valley has shown a lot of improvement over the first three weeks of the season, so we know it’s going to be a battle. But at the same time, we know that it’s all about us. We need to continue to play SMC football, with the emotion and energy required to get what we need out of the season.”

SMC will defend their home field against Antelope Valley this Saturday at 1 pm.