Devin Samples qualified prospects Long Beach Poly past Gardena Serra

For a functioning back with mighty benchmarks, Devin Samples’ initial-week energy for Very long Beach Poly towards Clovis was forgettable.

Sure, he picked up a couple touchdowns. But he floor his way to just 33 yards in 11 carries. Mentor Stephen Barbee did not imagine it was indicative of anything — he had a couple working backs in Karon Inexperienced and Josh Cason who’d get far more seems.

“I never want to run him 20, 30 moments a sport,” Barbee mentioned of Samples early this week.

30-three carries afterwards in a 17-3 acquire in Friday night’s rivalry matchup with Gardena Serra, so a great deal for that.

The greater the game, Barbee reported, the even larger Samples’ performance. There are few game titles larger than Friday night’s — and time and time once again, the Jackrabbits turned to Samples to merely operate the ball down Serra’s throat. He finished with 177 yards and a landing.

It was a new yr, Barbee stated. Entirely new staff. Long gone are the 4-year faces at quarterback for every single program, Serra’s Maalik Murphy and Poly’s Shea Kuykendall.

However Jackrabbits players have not overlooked Serra knocking them out in the Southern Portion Division 1-A finals final season, or their 28-27 loss to the Cavaliers in that season‘s opener.

“We can’t enable them do this three instances in a row … we gotta go out there with a unique mentality this time for certain,” quarterback Darius Curry reported Tuesday.

On the Jackrabbits’ 1st travel Friday, Curry looked rushed, almost throwing a choose on his initially go and struggling to move the ball. So the quite following travel, Barbee turned to a hurry-up offense and just held power-feeding Samples, who chugged for 78 to start with-fifty percent yards in 14 carries.

“He’s obtained the most important coronary heart at the time he gets that ball in his palms,” Barbee claimed after the activity.

4 yards. 8 yards. Six yards. Eight yards. Barely a blink went by, and Curry was handing off to Samples, the 5-foot-6 back’s impressive legs churning for a further chunk of yardage. Eventually, following Samples introduced the ball to the 36, the field opened up for Curry, the quarterback launching a spiral deep into the night at Veterans Memorial Stadium to come across sophomore Jadyn Robinson for the game’s to start with landing.

Robinson tallied 68 yards and the landing, major a obtaining corps that Barbee called the deepest in his five several years coaching the program.

“We acquired dogs all over the area,” Curry claimed previously in the 7 days.

A single of those people standouts was linebacker Ikenasio Mikaele, who picked up back again-to-back sacks of Serra quarterback Jason Mitchell late in the second quarter and then scooped up a fumble on the Cavaliers’ 1st push of the third quarter. The Poly defense kept Mitchell off equilibrium all night, the security-turned-quarterback misfiring on his to start with seven throws.

With Poly clinging to a 10-3 direct at the finish of the 3rd quarter, Samples took a handoff and burst through a hole down the still left sideline, a 43-garden achieve that marked his very first carry of far more than 15 yards. Snap soon after snap on the travel, the ball located his trusty fingers, and he retained digging for quick gains right until he observed paydirt on third and intention with a a single-property drive.

Guaranteed, Barbee may not want to run him 30 occasions — but in the largest of games, the workhorse is a special luxurious.