Fresno City falls short in sixth straight loss to CC San Francisco

BY ANTHONY GALAVIZ

Down three touchdowns in the first half, Fresno City College coach Tony Caviglia felt his team still had a shot at City College of San Francisco.

"We gave ourselves a chance," he said.

Fresno City opened the third quarter by closing in on a 4-yard TD run by Jeremy Smith, but state fourth-ranked and host CCSF had an answer for every Fresno City comeback in a 44-33 nonconference victory Saturday. San Francisco (3-0) has won six straight in the annual series.

"I'm proud of the guys, how we competed," Caviglia said. "When you make little mistakes against good teams they get magnified and that's what I told them after the game. We played our hearts out."

Eighth-ranked Fresno City (2-1) also had scored right before halftime. James Whitfield caught a 13-yard TD pass from Nolan Sorensen.

But even there, the rally was blunted when Fresno City's PAT was blocked.

San Francisco's Hashim Boyd returned it for two points to make it 30-13.

Fresno City also had an extra point blocked and returned for two a week earlier against Sierra.

"We put ourselves in a hole," Caviglia said. "We scored right before the half to cut the lead ... and they blocked the PAT."

The visitors trimmed the deficit to 10 twice in the third quarter.

"We have great character on this team," Fresno City defensive back Tajhe Moore said. "A lot of veterans told us, 'We're not going to give up. We're going to come back and fight our way back in the game,' and that's what we did."

The teams started evenly, with San Francisco scoring on its opening drive -- quarterback Anthony Rodriguez ran for a 10-yard TD. Fresno City's Errian Wingfield responded, busting a 47-yard run that with the kick made it 7-7.

San Francisco then went on a 21-0 run and never really needed to look back.

Fresno City hopes to use the loss to its advantage moving forward. A conference championship would earn the team a NorCal final four berth and likely another shot at CCSF.

"Adversities are going to happen," Moore said. "We're going to have our moments when big plays happen and we just have to keep (looking) forward. We feel we can stay in the game with the best of them."

Fresno City's Jeremy Smith had 14 carries for 122 yards and two scores. Wingfield ran six times for 63.

"We had a chance to win the game running the ball but we had to play catchup," Caviglia said. "Hard to come back against a team like this."

• Freddy Taliulu was 15 of 26 for 187 yards three TDs in West Hills' 34-14 win over Los Medanos on Friday. The Falcons, 2-8 in 2013, are 3-0 under new coach Robert Tucker, who spent the past four seasons as assistant head coach at the University of Sioux Falls.

The reporter can be reached at (559) 441-6042, agalaviz@fresnobee.com or @agalaviz_TheBee on Twitter.