Howells Combine to Lead Western Past Los Amigos

You can call it cause and effect football.

Case in point: If the Howell family has a successful outing on the field, this is usually an indication that Western High School has a pretty good shot at winning.

Well, yes, Thursday night the Howells did play a bit of Can you top this? And the result was a 15-0 victory over Los Amigos at Handel Stadium in Anaheim.

Here are the Howells’ contributions:

--Coach Jim Howell coaxed another strong game from his defense, which was coming off last week’s big victory over La Quinta.

--Jim Howell Jr. scored Western’s first touchdown with a three-yard run in the opening quarter.

--Toby Howell caught a five-yard pass from quarterback Mike Huy for the Pioneers’ second touchdown.

All this added up to Western’s third straight victory after opening the season with a 3-0 loss to Loara. Although the Pioneers are starting to look like the team people expected them to be, Jim Howell wasn’t ready to go overboard about his team’s prospects.

“I didn’t think we had the intensity we had last week,” he said. “We made too many mistakes, we weren’t crisp.

“Why not? I don’t know. Maybe because it was a Thursday game. Or maybe it was hard for the kids to come back after last week’s game. I don’t know. If I knew the answer, I’d be a mental genius.”

Western didn’t exactly need its players’ best effort. Los Amigos (2-2) didn’t enter Pioneer territory until late in the third quarter.

The closest Los Amigos came to scoring was Western’s 16. But the Pioneers knocked Mike Eicherly for a three-yard loss. Then, on the next play, Los Amigos was penalized for illegal motion.