South County Passing Tournament: Top Defensive Performers

Some of the top programs in Southern California gathered at Mission Viejo High last Saturday for a passing tournament and lineman competition. There were some great players at the event. Here were some of the defensive players that stood out to me throughout the day. Disclaimer: I did not get a chance to watch every team at the tournament play. Los Alamitos won the tournament and I wrote <a href="https://prepredzone.com/2021/07/los-alamitos-wins-major-passing-tournament/">in depth about it here</a>. But the top defensive players for Los Alamitos were <strong>Isaiah Dorsey</strong>, <strong>Byron Ferguson</strong> and new Mater Dei transfer [player_tooltip player_id="115430" first="Stephen" last="Lendsey"]. Linebacker <strong>Brian Jurado</strong> and <strong>Aiden Greene</strong> also made some big plays in the final rounds. https://twitter.com/sunset_rewind/status/1413944676583804930?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1413944676583804930%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fprepredzone.com%2F2021%2F07%2Flos-alamitos-wins-major-passing-tournament%2F Mission Viejo looked much better than they did at the Battle at the Beach tournament. <strong>Ruben Lopez</strong> was the highlight of the defense in that tournament but more guys contributed on Saturday than the previous week. <strong>Christopher Cooper</strong> and <strong>Kaymond Wallace</strong> both looked good at corner for the Diablos and were hanging with elite receivers from Servite and Los Alamitos. One team I saw quite a bit of Saturday was Long Beach Poly. I got a close look at cornerback [player_tooltip player_id="144960" first="Daylen" last="Austin"] who is a national recruit. He shut down his half of the field most of the game and when teams threw to him, he closed on the ball fast. He has confidence, great jumping ability and good rapport with the rest of the defense. One linebacker that stood out for Poly was sophomore <strong>Dylan Williams</strong>, who transferred from St. Bernard of La Playa. He was good in pass coverage and stopped a lot of underneath routes. Orange was without some of its underclassmen stars, but some new transfers shined on both sides of the ball. La Serna transfer <strong>Corbin Hale</strong> looked outstanding at cornerback which isn’t surprising considering he was a top two defensive back for La Serna. He will be a two-way star for Orange this fall. https://twitter.com/CorbiLocks/status/1414102721230114818?s=20 Capo Valley is full of two-way guys who play receiver and defensive back and one who looked great on Saturday was <strong>Owen Taylor</strong>. Whenever I write about how awesome Cougars star [player_tooltip player_id="45038" first="Dane" last="Benedix"] is, Capo Valley fans tweet me, "what about Owen Taylor?? Why do you never mention him?" Well here you go Capo Twitter. Here is your Owen Taylor mention. He’s a really good defensive back who has a nose for the ball and makes tackles when the pads come on. https://twitter.com/amandamoussiaux/status/1383274912362598401?s=20 Newport Harbor is another team with a lot of two-way stars but a stand out to me was junior safety <strong>[player_tooltip player_id="148989" first="Carson" last="De Avila"]</strong>. I saw him last year cause problems in the backfield on safety blitzes and defending sweeps, but his pass coverage was impressive Saturday. He also closes to the ball fast and could have had some big hits if the pads were on. He looked good against Los Alamitos’ great receiving corps. Pacifica (Garden Grove) really impressed me on offense which I will write about later, but defensively cornerback <strong>Jeremiah Ingram</strong> looked good. He transferred from Los Alamitos last offseason and was a good two-way player for Pacifica last season but looks like he will have an expanded role this season. Pacifica was pretty thin at receiver and DB on Saturday so Ingram and star [player_tooltip player_id="147762" first="Jordan" last="Ross"] were playing a lot of snaps and were getting tired later in the day which is more than understandable.