ANAHEIM — Capistrano Valley quarterback Talon Spencer accounted for four touchdowns as the Cougars scored an impressive 41-14 victory over Western on Friday night at Western High.
Cougars coach Sean Curtis was thoroughly pleased with how his team performed, especially on the defensive side.
“That’s a really good football team over there,” Curtis said. “I feel like, like you said, our defensive line was the difference, putting pressure on that quarterback. Because, you know, we know if he had time to get the ball to his athletes, it would be a challenge for us. So that was the main goal, and we established that.”
The Cougars fumbled on their second play from scrimmage, which the Pioneers quickly capitalized on when Chance Thomas connected with RJ Dogbah on the very next play for a 30-yard touchdown pass to go up 6-0.
Thomas stayed in the pocket as long as he could and took a big hit as he let his pass fly. Dogbah made an acrobatic catch in the back of the end zone as he fully extended to secure the reception.
Capistrano Valley moved the ball downfield on its second possession but fumbled again, this time on the Western 5.
Ian Douglas came up with the loose ball for the Pioneers.
The Cougars (5-1, 1-0) took the lead early in the second quarter when Spencer got loose for a 19-yard keeper to make it 7-6.
“He’s really just starting to kind of get into his groove,” Curtis said of Spencer. “You know, he started at receiver for us the last two years. So he’s played a lot of football already, even though he’s a junior. So him moving into quarterback, there were some growing pains there in the first couple games. He played some good opponents.
“It really got him to focus on what he could get better at. But, I mean, yeah, you see with his decision making and athletic ability, we’re really excited about him under center.”
Western (4-2, 0-1) responded with a big play. This time Thomas floated a pass to Maxwell Young for a 30-yard touchdown pass.
From that point on, though, the Cougars’ defense took over.
Capo Valley tied the game on Spencer’s second TD run of the game, then created a turnover just before halftime. Thomas was pressured from the edge and Evan Eidenmuller ended up with the takeaway at the Western 20.
With four seconds remaining in the half, on fourth-and-goal from the 1, Spencer executed a brilliant play-action fake and found Colin Hooper all alone in the back of the end zone to make the score 21-14.
Curtis described that pivotal sequence at the end of the half.
“That was the turning point in the game,” he said. “You know, we come out, we have two fumbles on the first two drives, and they took the ball to start the game. So we had given them three extra possessions, really up to that point.
“So our defense comes up with a huge strip sack and we get the ball in the red zone going in. So, punching that in and knowing that we were going to get the ball in the second half, really kind of gave us those two possessions back.”
Capistrano Valley’s Izaiah Bennet added a pick-6 in the fourth quarter, returning the 67 yards for a touchdown.
Western coach Dan Davidson said his team lost the battle at the line of scrimmage.
“They beat us up front and as the game went on, it got worse,” Davidson said.
“We made some plays early to counteract that. But it’s a credit to Coach Curtis and what he did,. They made some adjustments and they did some really good stunts that really bothered us, got really wide and did that wide rush on the outside and didn’t give us time. They did a wonderful job on us.”