Cathedral City impressive in a sample size
Cathedral City High opened the 2023 season at home against Indian Springs on Friday night, but the game was halted by lightning caused by a thunderstorm. However, in only about a quarter of play, the Lions impressed in a big way.
Cathedral City, which went 3-7 last year, came out and dominated from start to finish in a game that will be declared a no-contest. The Cathedral City defense immediately set the tone with a three-and-out where the Coyotes didn’t gain a positive yard. This was followed up by the mixture of junior running back Noah Gannon and senior wide receiver Rene Romero running through the Indian Springs defense to score quickly on the first drive of the year.
The Lions defense continued to swarm and dominate for the remainder of the match while both Gannon and Romero did more of the same, each finishing with a touchdown.
The stars
Noah Gannon, Cathedral City running back: Gannon looked like the best player on the field. He has a LeVeon Bell vibe to him when he runs, he’s a very patient runner with great vision. All that on top of being nearly impossible to bring down. The running back ended up with 30 yards and a touchdown in about one quarter of play, but he could have had much more. Gannon had multiple long runs that included a 30-yard touchdown called back due to penalties. He was also a force on the defensive side of the ball, ending with multiple tackles for loss.
Rene Romero, Cathedral City running back: Every time Romero touched the ball, something good happened. On his first touch of the game he took an end around 27 yards for the opening touchdown. Other than his touchdown run, Romero did most of his work in the screen game where he was continuedly great with the ball in his hands.
Joseph Antilla, Cathedral City, offensive tackle: Antilla was a force on the line of scrimmage. Antilla made great block after great block, routinely opening big lanes for Gannon to run through. He also was a force on the defensive line, swallowing up the Coyotes running plays while having multiple tackles in the backfield.
The chatter
Head coach Richard Lee on having to cancel the game: “Me and the players are definitely disappointed. We had really gotten on a roll. Since it’s the start of a new season, we were keeping the plays pretty vanilla, but as soon as we were about to open the playbook up we had to stop the game. Again, it’s disappointing, but life happens.”