SANTA ANA, Calif. – In the2017 American Metro League Championship game, the Santa Ana College Football team defeated the Pasadena City College Lancers 54-29 to win its first title since joining the league last year.
Santa Ana, now 7-3 overall and 6-0 in conference play, will advance to their first bowl game since 2012 when they took down College of the Canyons 24-21 in the Southern California Bowl.
The Dons offense set the tone early, scoring on their first four drives. Running back Deven Boston ran through the Lancer defense for a 19-yard touchdown on the first drive of the game. After the Lancers responded with a Mario Bobadilla to Stevie Williams 20-yard passing touchdown, Boston put the Dons on the board again by throwing a 35-yard dime to quarterback Conner Miller on a flea flicker to put the Dons up 14-7.
On the next to two Lancer possessions, the Dons would force three and outs to create some separation. With a Porfirio Hernandez 37-yard field goal and a Qadir Dean receiving touchdown from Miller, Santa Ana would extend the lead to 23-7. Both teams would score a touchdown each to go into the half with the Dons leading 30-14.
With a league championship on the line, the Lancers showed that they weren't going to go away easily as they scored the first touchdown of the second half with another 20-yard touchdown from Williams to cut the Santa Ana lead to nine.
The Dons kept the pressure up with a field goal on their next possession to make it a 33-21 game. Following that, both defenses decided to make an appearance with the next three possessions of the game resulting in a punt and two turnovers on downs. The dry spell was broken when Boston exploded for a 64-yard rushing touchdown to put the game out of reach at a score of 40-21.
Santa Ana would cruise the rest of the way to pick up their 6th win in a row and earn sole possession of the American Metro League Championship.
Miller threw for 331 yards and three touchdowns with a receiving while Boston ran for three touchdowns and threw one to Miller. Dean was the top receiver in this one, totaling 106 yards on six catches with a TD. Santa Ana racked up 588 yards of total offense for 54 points on the night.
On Sunday, the Santa Ana College Football team will find out what bowl they will be headed to or who they will be hosting next Saturday.