Eagles must defeat Chabot to go
There is no getting around it — for the Laney College football team to receive a postseason bowl bid it must defeat Chabot College on Friday, Nov. 13.
One advantage for the Eagles — the game is at home. Game time is 7 p.m.
But after a satisfying 38–17 home victory over the College of Sequoias on Oct. 30, Laney dropped an unsatisfying 26–21 game to San Joaquin Delta in Stockton on Nov. 7.
The loss to the Mustangs dropped the Eagles record to 4–5 overall and 1–3 in the National Valley Conference. Teams have been picked for postseason games with 5–5 records, but a 4–6 mark just about eliminates that chance.
So the Eagles must defeat Chabot — and that won’t be easy. Both the Gladiators’ success this season and their recent history against Laney mitigate against an easy contest.
Chabot is ranked №9 in the California coach’s poll with a 7–2 record, 4–0 in conference play. The Eagles also have a three-game losing streak against the Gladiators, although take away the last four minutes of those games and Laney could well have a three-game winning streak.
The losses: 37–33 in OT (2012), 29–22 in 2013, and 37–33 in 2014. The two teams did not play each other in 2010 and 2011; Laney’s last victory over Chabot was in 2009 (41–20). The Glads hold a 20–17 overall advantage in a series that dates back to 1969.
The loss to Delta was particularly disappointing; Laney had the ball on the Mustangs’ 1-yard line with less than a minute to go and couldn’t score. The Eagles were behind the whole game and were down 20–0 with 4:08 left in the second quarter.
Laney crawled back into the game when quarterback Stevie Farmer threw a 63-yard touchdown pass to Jay Yesin with 3:51 left in the first half. By the end of the first half, Delta had outgained the Eagles 301 yards to 147 and had a 19–3 edge in first downs.
But in the second half the Laney defense allowed 93 yards of Mustang offense and the Eagles offense got two more Farmer-to-Yesin scores, one good for 11 yards with 4:51 left in the third quarter and another of 18 yards with 8:07 remaining in the fourth.
Laney had one last chance. The Eagles got the ball on their own 32 with 6:45 left in the game. Farmer drove the Eagles down the field to the Mustangs’ 1-yard line, but a fourth-down pass with 1:05 left sailed past Yesin.