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Saturday afternoon’s college football game between two of the top four scoring offenses in California JC football didn’t go quite as expected.

College of the Redwoods traveled to Monterey Peninsula and lost 21-7, suffering their first defeat of the season and dropping to 2-1.

After a stellar start to the new season saw them win games against Merced and Hartnell in the first two weeks, things just didn’t go the Corsairs’ way on Saturday.

“It was not what I expected,” CR head coach Jason White admitted afterwards. “I thought it was going to be a much higher scoring game than that.”

The Corsairs, who came into the weekend as the fourth highest scoring team in the state, were unable to get into much of a rhythm and didn’t get on the scoreboard until the fourth quarter when they trailed 21-0.

“We did not play well,” White said. “We dropped passes, we had a touchdown called back on an illegal block in the back, and we had a lot of penalties.

“If you do things like that against a good team you’re not going to win.”

Running back Isaia Hemmings scored CR’s only TD of the afternoon, finding the end zone from 15 yards out, and he ran the ball effectively for much of the afternoon.

The Corsairs, however, were unable to find the end zone when they did drive the ball deep into Monterey territory and came away empty handed too many times, including two missed field goal attempts.

The CR offense drove all the way to the Monterey 5 in the fourth quarter but were unable to punch it in after quarterback Bryton Livingston threw an interception to end the drive.

“We moved the ball a lot during the course of the day and then we kind of sputtered out,” White said.

Defensively, the Corsairs held the highest scoring team in the state to just three scores, but that would prove to be enough.

The Lobos made their opportunities count, scoring their three touchdowns on three big plays of around 40 yards.

“Defensively we played well the majority of the game, we just gave up three big plays,” White said.

Standout receiver Jaydan Burns missed the game for the Corsairs after suffering an injury during practice on Thursday, which didn’t help matters.

In his absence, receiver Anthony Aguirre had a big game and was one of the bright spots for the visitors.

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Aguirre finished with around five catches for close to 100 yards.

Final stats were still unavailable as of Saturday night.

There were also some standouts on defense for the Corsairs, including Logan Malinowski, who switched from the defensive line to linebacker because of injuries.

Lineman Moe Leitaua also had a good game for CR.

“There were a lot of good individual efforts on defense, but the big plays kind of killed us,” White added.

The Corsairs will return home to face San Jose at the Redwood Bowl next weekend.

“All we can do is move on and get ready for San Jose,” said White who added “I think you’ve got to use every game as a learning experience whether you win or lose. Of course you’d rather learn winning than losing.”