The562’s coverage of football in 2024-25 is sponsored by The Terry Donahue Memorial California Showcase.
It ain’t about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.
Millikan took a tough blow to the chin last week in their humbling season opener loss to Newbury Park, but they refused to let the damage carry on any further. The Rams made all the right changes and showed their true colors on Thursday night as they ran past Carson in a lopsided win, 50-14.
“It’s definitely humbling when you get punched in the face like that,” said head coach Romeo Pellum of their season opener. “We didn’t know what to expect last week, and it gave us a gauge of where we were and what we needed to do. You never want to get punched in the mouth, and we had to change some things as a program. The way we practice, and how hard we practice, and what we do there, we [focused] on that and the kids came out and did a hell of a job tonight.”
It was evident within the first minutes of the game—Anthony League was going to get the ball a lot. League carried the ball six times in the Rams first two drives, ending each possession with a touchdown plow from one yard out to give Millikan a 14-0 lead. He finished the night with an impressive 179 rushing yards on 15 carries with four TDs, and caught two passes for another 31 yards.
“It felt great, especially bouncing back from last week,” League said. “I know I’m not a stats guy, but after not scoring last week and getting to have that feeling of a bounce back and contribute to a 50-14 win, that’s a great feeling.”
“He’s special,” Pellum said of League. “Cal is getting a good one. He’s a hell of a kid, a hell of a ball player. He’s a 4.0 student and everything you want in a ball player. That’s who you want to lead your team.”
Subscribe to the562 on GiveButter to make a recurring donation and keep Long Beach sports coverage free!
Despite what the final scoreboard reads, the Colts kept themselves in the game in the first quarter even after going down two scores. Sophomore quarterback Chris Field III dropped back on the Colt’s next drive and found Amari Gray lost in coverage for a 53-yard touchdown, followed by a Maninoa Thompson pick on their next defensive drive. Carson backed that up with a 16-yard touchdown rush down the middle by Field to tie the game 14-14, but that’s as far as a comeback would get.
“We weren’t playing our game. We had a blown coverage, we threw an interception, we were backed up, we can’t do that. We can’t have turnovers, we can’t have blown coverage, we can’t have penalties, and that’s what we harp on. I gave them an opportunity to fix it. They fixed it and we got it together. You look at the second half, they didn’t score. I challenged my guys to come out and not let them score in the second half.”
The Rams added points before the break after a JP Mialovski connection to Landon Ross from six yards out. On their next drive, Mialovski tossed one to Joshua Tuchek who was all alone for a 24-yard touchdown to put the Rams up 28-14 at half.
Mialovski finished the night 15/20 for 279 yards and two touchdowns along with a pair of interceptions while Ross ended the game with four catches for 106 yards and two scores.
“The first thing we talked about when we got back [last week] was that we have to flush it,” said Mialovski, who had a much improved game from his week one performance. “We had to learn from our mistakes and flush it. That’s something that I think we were able to do pretty well this week, we were able to put [last game] in our rear view mirror and get back out here and get this win.”
The Rams added three more scores in the second half including an 82-yard bomb from Mialovski to Ross for their second. League piled on two more touchdown runs including his longest run of the night that went for 61 yards and the score.
After being on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to a lopsided win, Pellum says there are no highs or lows, and he says his team is taking it one game at a time. They’ll move on to their matchup against Downey next week at home.
“There is no high,” Pellum said. “We’re starting over. After tonight this game is over, it’s no longer. We’ll go get ready for Downey and we’ll be ready to go 1-0 again.”
