‘Double Al’s’ : Running Backs Lowe and Savea Were the Answers to El Camino Coach Featherstone’s Problems : Football: The Warriors had good passing and defense. But when the team lost four ball carriers, it looked like a rebuilding year.

When El Camino College football Coach John Featherstone talks about his “double Al’s,” he is talking about the stars of El Camino’s running game: Al Lowe and Al Savea.

At the start of this football season, Featherstone knew he had good passing and good defense, but after losing four starting running backs he thought he was in for a rebuilding job.

He was wrong.

Lowe, a 5-10, 180-pound sophomore, relieved Featherstone’s worries. He comes from a winning tradition at Carson High, and that confidence helped him to become the team’s best running back (536 yards on 125 carries with seven touchdowns).

Savea, a 6-foot, 250-pound native of Hawaii, was a walk-on. He phoned Featherstone last summer and asked to try out. In his freshman year, he has turned in the second-best performance on the team with 532 yards and five touchdowns on only 103 carries.

“We lost almost all of our backfield from last year, and Lowe was an untested quantity coming back from last year,” Featherstone said. “Savea was a freshman walk-on and we didn’t expect him to do as well as he did.”

Lowe was in a backup role last year, backfield coach Peter Sen said.

“He wasn’t ready to do much else for us,” Sen said.

But a year of constant work in weight training paid off. Said Sen: “He put the time in at the training room and really turned things (around) for himself.”

Lowe feels weight training helps him prepare for games mentally.

“You have to be confident about your abilities or you wont be able to compete out on the field,” he said.

Savea’s strength comes from natural ability, say coaches.

“(He’s) just a talent, a real nugget,” Sen said. “He’s quick and nasty and definitely the biggest guy I’ve ever coached at running back.”

Savea and Lowe were named to the All-Mission Conference second team.

El Camino ended its season with a 10-0 record, tied with Navarro, Tex., for the top ranking in the country, according to JC Grid-Wire. The Warriors, California’s second-ranked team, meet Riverside City College at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Orange County Bowl at LeBard Stadium in Costa Mesa.

“Out of all of the winning teams I’ve been on and all of the winning teams El Camino has produced, we stand out the most,” Lowe said.

Both players credit hard work for much of their success. As an example, Lowe gained 10 pounds to 180 since last year after daily workouts in the training room.

Featherstone was pleased to see the difference: “To play in my backfield you have to be a three-dimensional player, and I think that shows in the yards we’ve been averaging this season,” Featherstone said.

Training is an important part of the daily regime for Lowe and Savea. Sen said he sees many physically talented players who don’t spend the time needed to perfect that talent. Lowe and Savea have put in the time and that made the difference, he said.

“People out of high school have increased the weight they can lift by 50 pounds by the end of the season,” Savea said. “Even that isn’t enough to be able to play for Featherstone. You have to show that you’re tough and can block, run and catch.”

The Warriors are known for their passing. The team has produced five All-American quarterbacks in the past decade. This season they are led by All-American Frank Dolce, who completed 186 of 309 passes for 2,494 yards and 23 touchdowns.

That’s why coaches point out that the Warrior running game has been overlooked. In the final game of the regular season against Cerritos College, the backfield gained 218 yards and scored three touchdowns, including one each by Lowe and Savea. Lowe gained 103 yards on 20 carries. Dolce completed 19 of 27 passes for 185 yards and one touchdown.

“At the start of the season we (Lowe and Savea) were getting only three or four chances per game, but as we proved ourselves on the field and in practice we got to do more,” Savea said. “It used to be only the pass that the opposing defense had to key on, but now with a running team we give them real problems. If they key on the pass, we just run it by them; and if they key on the run, we just pass the ball.”

The Warriors have a family atmosphere, the pair said, and that has been important to them, more important, perhaps, than the game of football. Lowe said that the Friday night team bowling and the occasional team dinner make everyone dig a little deeper for each other when the game starts.

“On some teams there are cliques of stars and cliques of race, but here everyone is just one of the boys,” Savea said. “They feel like my family.”

The leadership on the running team has fallen on Lowe. He says it’s because of the time he spent learning and running the plays correctly last year.

“When somebody on the running team doesn’t know something about a play, they can come to me and know that they are going to get the answer they need,” Lowe said. “I like to help people out. It makes me feel good.”

Savea said there isn’t much jealousy between the two running backs because the person who gets the ball is the best runner against that type of defense.

“We are like brothers,” Savea said. “We know that the coach knows what he’s doing, so if he says that one of us should run the ball more than the other it’s what we have to do to win.”