By Ray Hamill — A tough weekend for the National NorCal Conference teams saw many of them slide in this week’s state rankings, including College of the Redwoods.
After losing 27-26 to Monterey Peninsula in a game they let slip away at the Redwood Bowl on Saturday, head coach Jason White and his players dropped four spots in this week’s state coaches poll to No. 17.
Still, it’s been an impressive season thus far for the local community college program, which is 4-1 and is poised to challenge for a conference championship over the next six weeks.
CR has a bye this weekend before traveling to play American River (1-4) in its conference opener next week.
American River is the only one of the six NorCal conference teams not ranked right now, but the Beavers are included among the teams on the bubble.
Most of the ranked conference teams dropped this week, including Diablo Valley, which fell from No. 2 to No. 9 after suffering a big 51-10 loss to new No. 2 San Mateo.
That was the first loss of the year for the 4-1 Vikings.
Butte College also lost over the weekend, falling 23-20 to No. 12 Modesto and dropping to 3-2.
The Roadrunners dropped five spots in this week’s state rankings to No. 10.
Two of CR’s other conference opponents rose in the rankings after weekend wins.
Sierra (4-1) is up three spots to No. 8 after a 44-21 win at De Anza, which was the team’s fourth straight win, while Laney (3-2) is up four spots to No. 21 after a 43-7 win at home against San Jose.
After opening conference play at American River, Redwoods returns to the North Coast to host Butte in what should be a big matchup against an old rival on Oct. 17.
CR will then close out the regular season with three more conference games, playing at Sierra on Oct. 24, hosting Diablo Valley on Halloween and traveling to play Laney on Nov. 7.
