Westchester Shoots for Back-to-Back Crowns

A collection of characters with nicknames like Meat, Top Gun and Trigger is determined to prove that football has arrived at Westchester High School.

After winning a City 2-A Division championship last year, the Comets will attempt to become the first City school ever to win consecutive championships in different divisions tonight at 7:30 when they challenge undefeated South Gate for the 3-A title at El Camino College’s Murdock Stadium.

Westchester’s football team jumped to the higher division last spring when the City realigned schools in all sports. Despite the tougher division, the success continues.

“It is really everyone’s will to be respected that got us here,” said 5-10, 200-pound lineman Mario Goins, also known as Meat . “What really sparked us this year was that nobody thought we could win.”

The detractors included Westchester students, newspapers that continually failed to rank the 9-3 Comets, and some of Westchester Coach Larry Wein’s friends who figured the Comets wouldn’t be that strong with only 10 seniors.

“There are still some attitudes about Westchester not being a football school,” Wein said. “I don’t know if we are or aren’t. But I think people didn’t take us too seriously before because we were 2-A.”

Franklin Coach Armando Gonzalez isn’t snickering this week. His two-time defending 3-A champion Panthers, who came into last week’s semifinal against the Comets riding a 19-game winning streak, left lugging a one-game losing skid, 27-0.

“Maybe our kids didn’t think (the Comets) were as good as they are,” Gonzalez said, “but they should never have been 2-A.”

When Wein arrived at Westchester seven years ago he took over a program that had won just two games in more than four seasons.

Since then, the Comets have traversed the galaxy of City football. “I think now we can pretty much play with anybody except the powerhouse schools,” said Wein.

Spearheading the Comet attack is running back Tim Holliday. This season he’s dashed for 1,162 yards and 7 touchdowns on 159 carries. Not surprisingly, City rushing leader Lamont Lovett of Franklin attracted more attention last week. But Holliday, who calls himself Trigger because his quarterback is known as Top Gun, stole the glory against Franklin with 172 yards on 19 carries, including a 70-yard touchdown run.

Holliday gets to prove himself again this week against South Gate’s spinning, slashing standout Ivan Wilson, who has punished defenses with 1,829 yards and 22 touchdowns on 261 carries.

Wilson has numbers like Lovett’s because South Gate (13-0) relies on its running game, according to Coach Gary Cordray.

This might be good news for a Westchester defense that has held offenses to an average of 197 yards per game. Known as the Panic Zone , the defense claims it will hit any opponent that infiltrates its zone so hard that the foe will panic the next time around.

South Gate plays sturdy defense too. The Rams knocked three teams out of the playoffs without yielding a single point.

If Westchester falls behind early, it won’t be surprising.

The Comets, who won a California tie-breaker against Locke in the first round of the playoffs, were behind in the fourth quarter of five regular-season games and rallied to win all.

Goins said: “It is like we don’t do it unless we have to,” which is another way of saying the Comets will fight until the final gun.