Palomar’s football team has put one up on the win column.
Palomar started the game off great, scoring 14 in the first quarter while finishing off the first half ahead of the Santa Monica Corsairs, 21-14. Then the Comets scored a touchdown in the third and fourth quarter, but gave up two touchdowns and two point conversions on each of those touchdowns, to end the game with a final score of 35-30, Palomar.
Comets Head Coach Joe Early said Saturday night’s win felt a lot better than the previous week when Palomar lost, but the Comets still have a long road ahead of them eliminating the penalties and improving the defense. Plus, there are a lot of things they need to shore up if they want to be a good football team.
“We had some untimely penalties that took large chunks of yardage away from us and it took us out of scoring position and put them in scoring position,” said Early. “So those are the things we got to continually harp on in practice, and our football IQ needs to be better. We can’t go making those kinds of mistakes and those kinds of penalties because they can only hurt us.”
Palomar has a lot of depth in their roster especially at the running back position, having nine players run the ball against Santa Monica.
Palomar beat Santa Monica with the run game, with the Comets running for over twice as many rushing yards as the Corsairs.
One key player to Palomar’s running game was freshman running back, Isaiah Augero of Poway High School, who made his Palomar College debut on Saturday night.
Augero bursted onto the scene against Santa Monica, running the ball eight times, picking up 55 yards, while averaging 6.9 yards per carry in his outstanding 2016 debut.
“It felt amazing,” said Augero. “I finally got that opportunity, and it just felt amazing.”
Augero was benched in week one against Southwestern, but received the opportunity against Santa Monica and capitalized on it picking up 37 yards on his first three carries.
“The holes were open,” said Augero. “I give all the credit to the lineman after each play. They were killing it. So they just gave me the ball, and those opportunities came when the holes opened.”
Palomar’s freshman quarterback, Matt Romero of Oceanside High School, also played a key role in Saturday night’s game throwing for 244 yards while completing 20 passes in 33 attempts, with two of those completions going into the end zone for touchdowns.
Romero improved from week one where he threw 22 incomplete passes with three of those incompletions going into the hands of Southwestern’s defense for interceptions.
“I think it was better than the first week, of course. I just got to get better at reading the whole field,” said Romero.
Romero is starting to have good chemistry with his running backs, knowing what they’re capable of and having a lot of confidence in them after what they achieved against the Corsairs.
Romero also had a better connection with his receivers than he did in week one against Southwestern. Going from completing 52 percent of his passes to a completion percentage of 61 percent against Santa Monica.
“I think things are getting a lot better,” said Romero. “We’re starting to come together more as a team.”
Palomar’s football team goes on the road in its next game against the Cerritos College Falcons before coming back home to play the Moorpark City College Raiders at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 24 at Escondido High School.
