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The Lakewood football team wasn’t able to overcome some costly turnovers and Torrance’s punishing rushing attack Friday night in a 38-13 loss to the Tartars at John Ford Stadium.
Torrance senior running back Vaughn Reinert rushed for 126 yards, had one rushing touchdown and an interception for a touchdown to lead the Tartars to the win.
After winning the opening coin toss, Torrance (3-2) elected to receive the ball and marched 80 yards and scored a touchdown after Gibson Turner found Zechariah Nichols for a 23-yard touchdown to take 7-0 with 8:03 left in the first quarter.
Both teams traded punts on the next two drives and on the ensuing drive after that Aidan Kautsky was picked off by Torrance’s Morgan Dixon to give the Tartars a short field.
The Lancers’ (2-3) defense held Torrance to a field goal attempt and Leonardo Furuta drilled a 42-yarder to push the lead to 10-0 with 9:58 remaining in the second quarter.
On the next drive, Lakewood started to get some momentum after some solid running from senior Jordan Montgomery who had 16 yards on three carries, however the drive was ended after Reinert picked off Kautsky and returned it for a touchdown to give Torrance a 17-0 lead with 7:08 left in the first half.
The offensive struggles continued on Lakewood’s next drive and after a punt Torrance went right back to the running game and Reinert scored on a 7-yarder to make it 24-0.
“We’ve got to get better stopping the run,” Lakewood coach Mario Morales said. “I mean, they ran the ball really well, and we’ve got to get off the field on critical downs. They converted a lot of third downs. We’ve just got to get off the field. We’re going to look at the film, see what we’re doing wrong or what we need to do better. So that’s the big thing for us.”
Lakewood came out halftime and forced Torrance to punt on the opening drive of the third quarter. However, Lakewood couldn’t get anything going on the next drive.
Terrish Weston Jr. gave the Lancers some momentum with an interception on the Tartars’ next drive and Lakewood went to a wildcat formation looking to get something going on offense.
It worked as Larry Morris got loose for a couple yards and capped the drive with a 6-yard touchdown to cut Torrance’s lead to 24-7 with 6:10 left in the game.
“We put it in this week because we knew we had to run the ball a little bit,” Morales said. “That’s something we put in earlier this week, and it’s something where we know we can have a bigger package with him. So we’re just kind of progressing to that point.”
Torrance didn’t bat an eye as they went 80 yards on the next drive that was capped by another touchdown as Turner found Chapman Hurley for 5-yard touchdown to make it 31-7.
Kautsky responded for the Lancers on the next drive finishing Weston Jr on the first play for a 65-yard touchdown to cut the lead to 31-13.
After Lakewood forced a turnover on downs, a Lancers’ fumble gave the ball right back to Torrance and they scored again on a Sonny Gomez touchdown to make it 38-13.
Lakewood will wrap up non-league action next week when they travel to take on Villa Park, while Torrance has a bye before opening league action at Santa Monica Oct. 2.
