After a stunning run to the Pac-5 title, Poly faces the challenge of refocusing on a state semifinal.
Poly's Jayon Brown (20) like his teammates, expended a lot of emotional energy winning a Pac-5 football title. Now Poly must play a state semifinal. (Jeff Gritchen/Staff Photographer)
LONG BEACH - Jayon Brown has had himself quite a season playing football for Poly High. Had it ended last week after the Jackrabbits completed a stunning and unexpected run to the CIF Southern Section Pac-5 Division championship, it probably would have been all right with him.
But thanks to a new state bowl system, Poly (11-3) could play as many as two more games. The Jackrabbits will play one more for sure. Tonight at 7:30 they will host Clovis North (12-1) in a regional game at Veterans Stadium. The winner will play next week for the state Division I championship at Home Depot Center.
Brown, a senior linebacker who has a team-high 82 tackles as well as three interceptions, was asked about the difficulty of staying motivated after helping Poly win its 19th CIF title, a dominating 35-17 victory over Mater Dei last Saturday at Angel Stadium.
"With us, we're trying to get pumped up," said Brown, who next season will be at UCLA. "But we're still young and kid-like, so we're trying not to be satisfied with this CIF Pac-5 championship because we want more. We always feel like we can do better than what we're doing.
"We're just trying to stay pumped up for this and get state for our coach."
The win over Mater Dei gave coach Raul Lara his fifth CIF title during his 12 years at Poly. The Jackrabbits defeated the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 seeds in the playoffs after starting the season 1-3 and being counted out.
Lara admitted Wednesday
that it's up to him to get his team psychologically ready to continue playing after riding what must have been a season-long emotional roller coaster."We talked about it yesterday and I think a lot of it has to do with me," Lara said. "If I'm not out there hollering and yelling and screaming and getting the guys going, then they're obviously going to take advantage of that. And the first couple of days of practice, I was not like that. I was really burned out, to be honest with you.
"But I told them yesterday that today, `We're going to get on your butts and we're going to make sure we've got everything the way it's supposed to be,' and today I was really pleased with our practice."
Brown leads a defense that has shut down some outstanding teams in the playoffs. Judging by some of the numbers coming out of Fresno, where Clovis North resides, it seems a good bet the Jackrabbits will again need to be at their best.
In last week's 27-10 Central Section Division I title win over Central High, Clovis North had several fine offensive performances.
Quarterback Christian Rossi was 14 of 18 for 174 yards and two touchdowns. Rossi is 6-foot-3, 220 pounds. One of his receivers, Marcus Rose, had six catches for 105 yards and a TD. Running backs Bolu Olorunfunmi and Carson Guzman ran for 108 and 72 yards, respectively.
The Broncos' two tight ends are Josh Lovingood (6-5, 250) and David Wells (6-6, 235).
"Watching them on film, they're big, they're pretty athletic," Lara said. "They have a very good football team. Offensively, they're well-balanced. They run a lot of our stuff, unbalanced stuff. They like running that off-tackle play that we like running. They do a good job throwing the ball.
"They have two big tight ends. They also have a quarterback who seems pretty big, too ... and in watching him on film he does a good job of scrambling. He kind of reminds me of Ben Roethlisberger, a big guy who's just hard to bring down."
Brown revealed the strategy.
"Our game plan is to try and slow down and limit the quarterback, don't let him get outside of us and contain and stop the run completely," he said.
Of course, Clovis North will have the unenviable task of trying to stop a terrific Poly running game featuring Manusamoa Lu'uga (1,228 yards, 12 TDs) and Gerard Wicks (1,330 yards, 17 TDs). The passing game with quarterback Tai Tiedemann and receivers John Smith and Thomas Tucker has also at times been dangerous.
robert.morales@presstelegram.com
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