Anaheim Victory Is Family Affair

Kennedy High’s football team was introduced to Anaheim’s Droughns brothers Saturday night at Western High. The meeting was not a pleasant one for the Fighting Irish, who lost the nonleague game, 24-7.

Robert Droughns spent the night running free in Kennedy’s offensive backfield and Reuben Droughns spent most of his time flying through the Kennedy secondary.

Robert Droughns sacked Kennedy quarterback Chris Clark twice from his right outside linebacker spot and when he wasn’t putting Clark on his back, he was flushing him into another waiting defender. In all, Clark was sacked seven times for minus 40 yards.

Rueben ran for 116 yards and a touchdown in 26 carries.

“They both played their butts off,” Anaheim Coach Todd Borowski said of the sophomores.

Anaheim’s blitzing linebackers caused chaos in the Irish backfield all night, but especially in the first half, when Kennedy (2-1) was held to only 25 yards offense. The Irish’s only scoring threat was squashed when a Clark to Jason Myles 63-yard scoring pass was nullified because of a holding penalty.

“Clark’s a great athlete,” Borowski said. “Our whole goal was to contain him and not let him get outside.”

Robert Droughns and Julio Herrera, who had 2 1/2 sacks, took care of that on their blitzes.

“On some plays I came through and they barely touched me,” Robert Droughns said.

Kennedy Coach Mitch Olson said Droughns and his friends were simply too much to handle.

“They crushed us,” Olson said. “They took it to us. We just flat-out missed people. They had a great defensive plan and they executed it.”

Not that it would have mattered much, but Kennedy’s best all-around player Wes Morris missed much of the game with a pulled muscle in his shoulder blade. Morris attempted to play, but left in the first quarter after receiving a five-yard pass and a shot on his shoulder.

Robert Droughns also scored twice on runs of one and 17 yards. On both occasions, his brother was serving as a decoy.

Kennedy had some opportunities to score early in the second half, but an offensive pass interference penalty stalled a drive that reached the Anaheim three. Kennedy had to settle for a 35-yard field-goal attempt from Clark that was wide.

Clark hooked up with Myles again on a 69-yard scoring pass, and this time it wasn’t called back. But Droughns’ 17-yard scoring run with 15 left sealed the victory.