With historic runs to the championship game for four local high school football teams, there was bound to be a historic haul of Long Beach and Moore League football players receiving All-CIF honors. That proved to be the case with 22 Moore League and St. Anthony players making the list–and arguably there should have been several more.
The highest congratulations are in order to Jordan senior Jeremie McGurn, a two-way player who was named CIF-SS Division 11 Defensive Player of the Year, a significant honor for McGurn as well as for the Panthers, who haven’t had a CIF-SS Player of the Year in at least three decades.
It’s pretty clear that there were some sour grapes in the Division 4 meeting, where Long Beach Poly did not receive a CIF-SS Player of the Year recognition, and had only four athletes receive All-CIF honors. It’s very rare for a team to win a championship and not receive a Player of the Year nod, and on top of that three teams got more All-CIF honorees than Poly. This despite Poly winning the championship and outscoring its four opponents 178-38. St. Francis, who allowed 300+ rushing yards to Poly in the championship, had three linemen named All-CIF while Poly had one.
Additionally Millikan was the only team to not receive an All-CIF honoree in Division 6. Rams receiver Angelo Miranda had 7 catches for 121 yards and a TD, plus an interception on defense; Miranda would have been an easy choice for an All-CIF honoree.
Click here for the full All-CIFSS honorees.
Long Beach Poly: Division 4
Shea Kuykendall (QB), Wendell Moe (OL/DL), Daylen Austin (DB), and Devin Samples (RB)
St. Anthony: Division 10
Sone Aupiu (RB/LB), Anakin Aupiu (RB/LB), Eric Suluai (DL), Kweku Claybrook (WR/DB), Tyler Henry (DB/WR), Conor Hochberg (QB), and Taoipu Laulu (DL)
Jordan: Division 11
CIF-SS Defensive Player of the Year: Jeremie McGurn (LB)
Damian Henderson (WR), Jordan Washington (RB), King Manukailea (OL), Elijah Jones (WR/CB), Sione Felemi (OL/DL), and Malik Lott (RB/LB)
Compton: Division 12
Deon Johnson (DB), Erick Barrios (RB), A’ava Lilomaiava (QB/LB), Samson Tupuola (OL/DL)
