Earning its second bowl berth in three seasons, the Ventura College football team (7-3) will play Golden West (6-4) in the Orange County Bowl.

Kickoff at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa is Saturday night at 5.

"It's a huge accomplishment for these guys," said Ventura coach Jon Mack. "We're excited. It's a great reward for a great season."

The Pirates were proud of a solid third-place finish in the difficult Northern Conference and were back to work Sunday, 12 hours after beating rival Moorpark in consecutive seasons for the first time in 23 years.

"We're flexing," said Mack. "We lost three games to three 9-1 teams."

All three of Ventura's losses came against Top 5 seeds in the Southern California regional playoffs. The Pirates finished tied for No. 9 in the final Southern California coaches' poll.

Golden West finished 6-1 in the American Division's Mountain Conference. It was kept out of the playoffs by a 35-32 loss to Los Angeles Harbor on Sept. 26.

The postseason pairings are No. 8 Los Angeles Pierce (7-3) at No. 1 Mount San Antonio (9-1), No. 5 Hancock (9-1) at No. 4 Bakersfield (9-1), No. 7 L.A. Harbor (9-1) at No. 2 Fullerton (9-1) and No. 6 Palomar (8-2) at No. 3 Cerritos (9-1).

The Southern California champion advances to play the winner of the Nov. 21 Northern California title game between San Mateo (9-1) and Reedley (6-4) in the Dec. 12 state championship game.

The postseason structure put in place during the Southern California Football Association's creation in 2008 includes berths for the three Northern Division conference champions (Mount SAC, Fullerton and Bakersfield), three Northern Division conference runners up (Cerritos, Hancock and Palomar) and the two conference champions from the lesser American Division (L.A. Harbor and L.A. Pierce).

In the other two non-playoff bowl, Saddleback (8-2) will play College of the Canyons (6-4) in the Western State Bowl and El Camino (8-2) will play Grossmont (7-3) in the Beach Bowl.

Making its first bowl appearance in eight years, Ventura scored 15 points during a three-minute span in the fourth quarter to upend host Palomar, 39-35, and confirm a 8-3 season in the 2007 Southern California Bowl.

Click the jump for the official box score.

Bakersfield quarterback Logan Kilgore's 27-yard scramble and his 7-yard pass to Montreal Harris on fourth and 4 from the VC 44 set up Bakersfield on the Ventura 26.

But the Pirates hold and force Gallington's season-best 46-yard field goal.

Bakersfield leads 6-0 with seven seconds to go in the first quarter.

From Ventura's perspective, there's good and bad news from the pregame warmups at Memorial Stadium.

Quarterback Antavius Sims (ankle) is in uniform and is expected to start. He looked pretty good, if a little stiff, in warmups.

"He'll be fine," said offensive coordinator Tim Gutierrez.

Gutierrez feels Bakersfield may have the best defense on Ventura's schedule.

"They remind me of Cerritos," said Gutierrez. "Big and fast."

I was not able to locate cornerback Travaun Nixon. It's not official, but I've been told Nixon has broken his foot, had surgery Friday and hopes to heal fast enough to play in the postseason, should Ventura qualify.

Defensive coordinator Gary Anglin, who missed much of the week with bronchitis, said the Pirates will fill the hole left by Nixon's absence with a rotation of up to six players.

Although I expect safety Valtray Jackson to play a lot more.

We're here at Memorial Stadium, on the campus of Bakersfield College, for tonight's showdown for first place in the Northern Conference between the Renegades and visiting Ventura College.

There's plenty of ways to follow the game. You can either refresh this blog for periodic updates, follow our Twitter feed down the right hand side of this page, or listen to the live Internet radio broadcast.

More from pregame warmups later.

The geographical structure of the Western State Conference's North Division along the 101 freeway is under threat.

Northern Western State Conference schools Cuesta, Hancock and Bakersfield colleges would leave the WSC for the Northern region, if an emergency proposal to realign California community college conferences were approved.

The measure, unveiled at Thursday's Commission on Athletics meeting in Burlingame, was tabled until December Friday morning by the COA board.

In the plan, the three schools would join the Central Valley Conference (Fresno, Sequoias, Merced, Modesto, ect.) and be replaced by Lancaster's Antelope Valley College, which is part of the Foothill Conference (San Bernardino Valley, Chaffey, ect).

Cuesta does not field a football team, but apparently Hancock and Bakersfield would remain in the Southern California Football Association, where they play in the Northern Conference with Ventura and Moorpark.

The management council also approved 19 minor cost containment items regarding the reduction of contests, dues and playoff seeding from April through 2012.

Never mind coaches breaking down film.

Doctors reading films may have more of an impact on Saturday's potential Northern Conference title decider between the Ventura College and Bakersfield College football teams.

Ventura (6-1, 3-0) lost perhaps its most influential player on both sides of the ball in the first half of Saturday's 23-6 win over visiting Canyons and neither quarterback Antavius Sims, nor cornerback Travaun Nixon, has returned to practice this week after suffering lower body injuries.

Ventura coach Jon Mack said Tuesday that he expected Sims to be "fine," if slowed by pain, but the versatile quarterback seemed more pessimistic Wednesday.

"I might be out for another week," said Sims, who has accounted for 13 of the Pirates' 21 offensive touchdowns -- four passing and nine rushing.

Ventura has been more guarded about Nixon, the game-changing defensive back from Hueneme High who led the conference in tackles as a freshman and leads the state with six interceptions as a sophomore.

"I haven't seen the X-rays yet," said Mack. "We're waiting to hear."

Meanwhile, Bakersfield is dealing with the loss of 6-foot-4, 317-pound defensive tackle Maurice Hayes, who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the third quarter of the Renegades' 49-3 win at Glendale Saturday.

"Losing Mo is a tough pill to swallow," Bakersfield coach Jeff Chudy told the Bakersfield Californian Tuesday. "He's a great locker room guy, a very contagious personality."

Hayes, a Tennessee and Georgia recruit, had 3.5 sacks and 8.5 tackles for losses this season.

BAKERSFIELD -- We've arrived at perhaps the state's most impressive community college football venue, Bakersfield's Memorial Stadium, to find that the first 0-5 team in the 42-year history of Moorpark College football is without two of its top athletes.

Running back/linebacker Jerrell Holland is in street clothes with a sprained knee. Big-play receiver Justin Bradley was in uniform, but was not cleared to play during warm-ups.

Yet the meeting with 5-1 Bakersfield, perhaps the favorite in the SCFA Northern Conference, could have been worse. It could have been a forfeit.

"We're missing two of our best athletes," said Moorpark head coach Jim Bittner. "But we actually had 12 guys out Thursday and Friday. It was a closest I've ever come to calling a game.

"I made the mistake of telling them, 'If you're sick, stay away,' " added Bittner jokingly.
Bittner is actually lifted by the attitude of the team.

"The only thing that gives me hope is they seem to have hope," said Bittner of his players.
The Renegades have been dominant at the line of scrimmage, averaging 192.8 yards rushing and 77.7 yards rushing. Running back Matthew Estill is a powerhouse.

"They're just going to take the ball and shove it down our throat," said Bittner. "Back in the old days, we could have pounded them back."

Moorpark will have to turn to quarterback Ian Shultis and receiver Chris Gant, offensively.

"Those guys are better than they've been," said Bittner of Bakersfield, "but they haven't played their best game yet. I really hope they don't do that tonight."

COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Moorpark (0-5, 0-1) at No. 10 Bakersfield (5-1, 1-0)
Griffin Stadium, 7 p.m.
LAST WEEK: Canyons 31, Moorpark 17;
SERIES HISTORY: Bakersfield leads, 11-6-1, in a series that dates back to 1986. Bakersfield won, 30-0, last year.
GAME FACTS: Coming off its best performance of a difficult season, Moorpark took another blow this week in the injury of RB/LB Jarrell Holland. Now it resumes its rivalry with powerful Bakersfield, which may be the frontrunner in the SCFA Northern Conference. Moorpark has allowed 48.4 points per game, is last in SoCal in rushing defense (256.4 ypg) and is minus 9 in turnover margin. But the Raiders have been dangerous in the air behind QB Ian Shultis (60-of-127 passing, 730 yards, 8 TDs, 7 ints.), WR Justin Bradley (20 rec., 338 yards, 1 TD) and WR Chris Gant (20 rec., 346 yards, 6 TDs). Bakersfield is averaging a 37-16 win and plus 7 in turnover margin. The Renegades have been dominant at the line of scrimmage, averaging 192.8 yards rushing and 77.7 yards rushing. RB Matthew Estill (115 att., 494 yards, 4 TDs) is a powerhouse. Behind DL Tyrone Crawford has five sacks, they have 20 sacks while only giving up 5, the best figure in SoCal. QB Logan Kilgore (68-of-120 passing, 1,183 yards, 11 TDs, 7 ints.) is No. 6 in passing efficiency. WR Rishar Matthews (31 rec., 444 yards, 4 TDs) is No. 4 in punt return average.

Ventura College swimming coach Larry Baratte is looking forward to learning just what type of team he has this season.

The Ventura men enter Saturday's final WSC meet at Ventura College at 4-0, even with Cuesta, one week before the WSC Championships at Bakersfield College.

"We've got 22 guys and 15 girls," said Baratte. "It's a pretty deep team and a pretty solid team. I think a lot of questions will be answered about what we are at the conference meet.

"I think we're in the hunt, I'm just not quite sure yet."