COSTA MESA — Sophomore tailback Ray Holley still considers the Orange Coast College football team a work in progress.
In Saturday’s 10-6 win over visiting Glendale, the Pirates’ vaunted defense did more than its share of the work, while Holley, as he has all season, handled most of the progress.
OCC (4-0, ranked No. 17 in the state, No. 10 in Southern California), which came in with the state’s top rushing defense, continued to make opponents take steps backward.
Glendale, whose sophomore tailback Jorge Chaidez entered as the state’s No. 3 rusher, averaging 150 yards per game, had minus-13 yards on 10 carries.
The Vaqueros (3-1), ranked No. 23 in the state and No. 13 in Southern California, finished with minus-29 yards on 34 rushing attempts.
Holley, who entered as the state’s No. 2 rusher with 537 yards in three games, had 161 of his 171 rushing yards in the first and fourth quarters. His 59-yard run to the Glendale one-yard line early in the fourth quarter keyed the Pirates’ four-play, 90-yard touchdown drive that he capped with his eighth rushing touchdown of the season.
Holley’s heroics helped OCC overcome a 6-3 deficit, as the defense blanked the Vaqueros for nearly the final 40 minutes.
Glendale quarterback Steve Miller ran hot and cold, completing 10 of 12 passes, including seven straight from early in the second quarter to early in the third. To begin the aforementioned seven straight completions, Miller threw four consecutive strikes, including a 26-yard touchdown pass to Brian Williams on fourth-and-20 to give the visitors their only lead with 9:54 left in the first half.
But after Miller began the second half as hot as he was late in the first, OCC, which sacked him six times and stopped seven of his eight rushing attempts at or behind the line of scrimmage, turned up the pressure.
Miller failed to complete any of his final 10 passes, two of which were intercepted, as OCC improved to 4-0 for the second straight year. Outside of his 10-for-12 stretch, he was two for 19.
