West Catholic holds off LC
AMBLER » Victory was in the air for the West Catholic football team on Saturday night, and Zymeen Howell went up and grabbed it — twice.
First, he clutched a 30-yard touchdown reception from quarterback Kal-El Durham on a fourth-down play in the first quarter.
Said Howell: “I had all the confidence in the world that I was gonna catch it.”
Howell’s second big grab against rival Lansdale Catholic came in the form of a fourth-quarter interception, which helped put the game away for West Catholic.
“Something just clicked. I felt I needed to ice the game,” Howell said. “We brought energy. We knew who we were, what we could be, and we just left it all on the field.”
Howell played a pivotal role in the Burrs’ first victory of the season, a 22-14 thriller over the Crusaders on a warm evening on the turf at Wissahickon.
“It all came together,” said Howell, who added 24 yards rushing on six carries, to go with his
four receptions for 49 yards and a score. “This builds our confidence a lot, so we have our heads high going into the next game.”
The Burrs raised their record to 1-2 and are off to a 1-0 start in the Philadelphia Catholic League Blue Division. The Crusaders, battling back several times Saturday night, dropped to 0-4 overall, 0-1 in the PCL Blue.
“We played well enough defensively,” Crusaders coach Dominic D’Addona said. “We just misfired offensively. We just couldn’t really put stuff together.”
Lansdale Catholic will be at Cardinal O’Hara Friday at 7 p.m. while West Catholic will be hosting BonnerPrendie.
Howell’s touchdown reception got the Burrs going, and they increased their lead to 14-0 when K’saan Green broke free for an 81 yard touchdown run. Green piled up 166 yards on his 24 carries.
But the Crusader defense kept coming up with stops and takeaways, and J.P. Bayne’s 20-yard return of a West Catholic fumble set up LC in prime scoring position late in the first half.
Quarterback Cole Meehan took it from there, hitting Tyler Van Osten and Efrain Quiles for key gains. On 4th-and-Goal from the two, Meehan battled his way in to the end zone for a touchdown as the first-half clock expired, cutting the margin in half at 14-7.
“That gave us a lot of momentum,” Meehan said. “We stayed in it the whole game. We kept battling. We wanted this game really bad. We were hungry for it.”
Both defenses took over in the third quarter.
The only points of the quarter were produced by the Burr defense, a 60-yard interception return by Naidir Hilliard that extended the West Catholic lead to 22-7 (Green ran in for two). But again, back came LC. The Crusaders turned another turnover into points, and when Meehan hit Efrain Quiles for a 25yard score, LC came winging back into it, down just 22-14 with 5:36 to play.
But Howell’s interception stopped one LC drive and with time running out, another Crusader march was thwarted at the West Catholic 35.
“I’ve been telling the guys the last couple weeks, we’re closer than we are further away,” D’Addona said. “We just gotta keep working to improve.”