MPC-Shasta football

American Bowl
Saturday's game
Monterey Peninsula College (7-3) at Shasta (6-3), 3 p.m.
While a bowl game was warranted, I'm not sure the American Golden Coast conference co-champion Lobos were expecting a seven hour drive north to Redding for the American Bowl.
The annual Living Breath Foundation Bowl, which will be held in Salinas, was given to conference co-champion Merced instead, which certainly won't be a gate pleaser.
MPC erased an 0-2 start to the season by going 7-1 down the stretch, knocking off two state ranked teams at the time in West Hills and Merced.
Freshman tailback Hunter Nye went over 1,000 yards rushing for MPC, the first in over a decade for the program -- scoring 13 touchdowns this fall.
Inserted into the starting lineup in Week 3, quarterback Hunter Raquet has thrown for 2,124 yards and 19 touchdowns for the Lobos, eight of which have gone to Matteo D'Alfonso.
Shasta started 0-3, including a loss to Hartnell, then closed the year with six straight wins to share the American Pacific 7 Conference title with Los Medanos.
 Trent Darns threw for over 1,900 yards and 13 touchdowns this season while DeMarco Grayson and Justin Hellyer combined for over 1,000 rushing yards and eight touchdowns.
 Defensively Treko Mattox is a sniper in the secondary with seven interceptions for Shasta, who only played nine games this year because of the Northern California fires.
 Ironically MPC's loss to Hartnell two weeks ago not only kept them from having the conference title to themselves, but likely cost them the Living Breath Foundation Bowl game.
 Seaside grad Troy Loper has 64 tackles, two interceptions, two fumble recoveries and has returned a kickoff and punt for a touchdown this fall for the Lobos.
 Anthony Saavedra has recorded a team high 74 tackles for MPC. Dylan Beechum has  6 1/2 sacks while Jonathan Giles has three picks and three fumble recoveries.