Mustangs Fall to 0-2 in Loss to Pittsburg
Sep 05, 2024 10:06AM ● By Alejandro Barron
D’Adrien Sanders attempts to escape the tackle of two Pittsburg Pirates’ players on Aug. 30 at the Monterey Trail Mustangs’ home field. Sanders would go on to rush for a total of 160 yards. Photo by Alejandro Barron
ELK GROVE, CA (MPG) - Like last season, the Monterey Trail Mustangs fell to 0-2 to start the season as they lost to the Pittsburg Pirates on Aug. 30 by a score of 42-13.
Mustangs head coach T.J. Ewing, said the postgame message last season when going down 0-2 is the same as the message this season.
“When we show film of it there’ll be a lot of introspection from coaches and players themselves saying, ‘You could have done this better,’ ‘I could have done that better,’ and then that gets us better because our kids know we’re a good team,” Ewing said.
Ewing also said that his team has to learn the speed of the game against competitive teams like the Pirates, as they have to stick to their system and not improvise.
Speed burnt the Mustangs on the first play of the game, as they went down 7-0 following the opening kick-off with a 96-yard return from the Pirates.
Soon enough, the Mustangs would go down 14-0 and were on the brink of going down 21-0 before a sack and fumble recovery within the Mustangs' 10-yard line from senior Kharter Turk prevented that and shifted the momentum in their favor.
This would lead to a D’Adrien Sanders touchdown to cut the deficit to 14-7 and contribute to his 160 total rushing yards on the night, according to MaxPreps.
“Great athlete, great player; he's a fantastic player. We're still working with him because he’s improvising when he turns, spins, does these crazy awesome moves, sometimes you open stuff to get hit from different positions,” Ewing said.
“So I’m trying to help the kid so he doesn’t hurt himself and can keep busting and get yards because he’s very talented. We don’t want him off the field; we want him on the field,” Ewing said.
Following the touchdown, an unintentional onside kick due to the windy conditions was recovered but couldn’t be capitalized by the Mustangs to tie the game. It allowed the Pirates to regain their momentum and go on to take a 42-7 lead.
Sanders would rush for another touchdown with less than two minutes in the game left to make it a 42-14 game.
Despite the result, Ewing said the Mustangs made a lot of good mistakes.
“I thought our line played really well. There’s stuff that we just got to clean up on film and watch it because at the end of the day you get frustrated sometimes and you try to do too much and I think our kids are really trying hard,” Ewing said.
Defensively the Mustangs were led by Turk, who had eight total tackles and a sack while Ulijah Usher, a senior defensive lineman, had seven tackles and a sack.
The mistakes that were made by the Mustangs come down to discipline and that falls on Ewing, he said.
“We got to limit our mistakes, and that’s just tightening up our discipline and that’s on me as the head coach. I got to do a better job as head coach,” Ewing said.
With two games left before starting league play, Ewing tried out three different quarterbacks against the Pirates.
“Christian (Coronado) was our starter, (Isaiah) Costley came in second and Kaden (Love) came in third. They all played outstanding; nobody was bad. They all played outstanding in terms of what they gave us for their skill set,” Ewing said.
The Mustangs keep most of their offense on the ground, as the three quarterbacks combined for a single completion on eight attempts for a combined nine passing yards, according to MaxPreps.
“So we may have to go with three guys, who knows, but we’re going to really evaluate and be smart about it. Look at it introspectively and be like, ‘What can we do to be better?’ Because it’s still a long season; we have eight games left,” Ewing said.
The Mustangs’ next opponent is the El Cerrito Gauchos, a team Ewing said is very similar to the Pirates.
“Both these teams are kind of the same, so it’ll be a very tough game, but I think we’ll be fine. Our kids will learn a lot from this game. We’ll play well and it should be a good game,” Ewing said.
The Mustangs will look to avoid going down 0-3 overall, as they did last season, when they take on El Cerrito at home on Sept. 6.
