Harvard-Westlake Football wins battle of styles against Royal – Daily News

STUDIO CITY – A beautiful concept in football revolves around the fact that there is no real right way to play, and the Harvard-Westlake-Royal matchup was a true example of a tale of two different teams.

Harvard and Westlake's ground attack was enough to beat Royal 25-14 in a non-league game on Friday. The Wolverines showed they didn't need passes to stay in the game while Royal struggled with an all-out aerial attack.

The focus was on the Wolverines' ground attack because they lost their starting quarterback in the first week.

“We put our best player in his hands with the ball,” Wolverines head coach Aaron Huerta said. “When you don't have a guy that can throw the ball every play, we have to figure it out. The guys figured it out and we had a lot of fun tonight.”

The Wolverines' nonstop ground attack helped end a quick scoreless first quarter. In the first half, the Wolverines threw just one pass for 7 yards while running the ball 23 times for 88 yards.

On the other hand, the Highlanders have only run the ball over 25 yards six times (once in the first quarter) while throwing the ball 13 times. Of those 13 passes, six were over 75 yards.

The first touchdown of the game was a 3-yard rushing touchdown for the Royals by Jonathan Arreola. The Wolverines answered before halftime with a 1-yard rushing touchdown of their own on fourth down by Ellis Robinson.

The Wolverines took the lead at halftime after Robinson converted a two-point conversion to extend the lead to 8-7.

Royal remained a pass-heavy team after halftime, but soon realized they needed to play more of a running game. A more even split kept the Highlanders in the game, running the ball 10 times and throwing 14 times in the second half.

Costly penalties and an inability to run the ball were enough for Robinson and the Wolverines to capitalize. Robinson finished his day with 17 carries for 113 yards and three touchdowns, despite being taken out of the game on a few plays due to a hit to the chin.

“Every game I try to get over 100 yards,” Robinson said. “It's important for us to stay focused and get as many yards as possible. Ultimately, it's about recovering from last week's loss and losing our quarterback earlier in the season. We did that today.”