A warm fall day in Sacramento made it a perfect day for a football battle — but not perfect for the Panthers, who ended up with a heartbreaking loss.
The Giants of the College of the Sequoias emerged over their conference rival Sacramento City College Panthers 24-20 in a seesaw battle at Hughes Stadium on Saturday, Oct. 11, 2025.
The game was the first conference game for the two teams. The first week of conference play sets the stage for the season-long battle to the Northern Californian Football Conference finals beginning on Nov. 22.
The game was a back-and-forth affair with the Panthers showing strong rushing defense that held the Giants to only two running first downs to the Panther’s nine running first downs. The first score was the end of 50-yard drive and a 2-yard dive into the endzone by Panthers’ Jackson Tallent-Burleson, part of the running back’s 100-yard rushing day.
The Giants countered with a passing game and flukey recovery of a Giants’ punt by the opposing team’s outside linebacker Pana Tuputala who ran it into the endzone for a touchdown that helped keep the first half scores to a 17-12 lead for the Giants.
“Rest of the conference, they hyped this team up to be a top 10 team in the state. And Fresno, they’re well respected. … You have to start over every week — regardless of what you did before — the moment, the now is the only thing that matters,” said Tallent-Burelson.
In the first minute of the third quarter, the Panthers came back strong with a touchdown pass from quarterback Jason Wilson to Letuli Leka and a 2-point conversion by running back Tallent-Burleson earned the Panthers a 20-17 advantage. Finally, with less two minutes left in the game, the Giants’ quarterback, Payton Faker, connected with his favorite target of the day Marshel Sanders with a 36-yard pass and a kicked extra point, which gave the Giants a 4-point lead which would hold until the end of the game.
A tight game showed the strength of the Giants passing game with Faker, the 6 foot, 5 inch freshman quarterback, connecting for 282 yards with 10 of the successful passes going to Sanders.
Panthers head coach, Dannie Walker, said, “We’re in a tough stretch from a competition standpoint in terms of our opponents. We are probably in the toughest conference in the state of California. We love the challenges, we just gear up and try to prepare the best that we can and provide our young men with a game plan where we’ll allow them to be successful.”
The next home game for the Panthers is 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 25 against Modesto City College Pirates at Hughes Stadium in Sacramento.
