Lewis Reaches the Next Level at Venice

There doesn’t appear to be a clear-cut choice for player of the year in the City Section, but while top-seeded Venice continues its rampage through the playoffs, senior wide receiver James Lewis is making a strong case for the honor.

Lewis returned two punts for touchdowns and threw -- yes, threw -- for another in a 63-14 victory over Gardena in the first round of the Championship playoffs. Six days later, he caught touchdown passes of 59, 36 and 73 yards during a 14-minute span to power The Times’ 10th-ranked team to a 53-0 victory over Los Angeles Crenshaw in the quarterfinals.

“I just do whatever I can to help my team win,” he said.

Fellow receivers Ryan Graves and Gerold Rodriguez have also put up impressive numbers for Venice, but no one has made more of a difference than Lewis.

“He’s always had the talent,” Coach Angelo Gasca said. “We know it. It was just that we had other players. But he’s pushed himself to the forefront. Nobody around here has played better than him recently.”

Lewis is succeeding in his first starring role. He has caught 56 passes for 1,132 yards and 16 touchdowns. Last year, he was the fourth-string receiver behind B.J. Vickers, Antwan Giddens and Rodriguez.

Lewis showed flashes of ability last season, scoring a touchdown on an 80-yard pass play in the semifinal loss to Woodland Hills Taft, but it took him a while to adjust to playing a secondary role.

“For the first time in his life, he wasn’t the best player on his team,” Gasca said. “He didn’t know how to deal with that.”

Lewis has certainly showed perseverance. For four years, he has risen at 5:30 a.m. to take public transportation 15 miles from his home in Watts to school in Venice. He dreamed of playing for the Gondoliers after watching quarterback J.P. Losman, currently at Tulane, play in high school.

Lewis hopes to attend Oregon State, which along with Colorado and Utah has been recruiting him. “I’ll be the first person in my family to say that I’ve graduated from high school,” he said.

Gasca praises Lewis’ ability to lead the team by his actions and also to help keep it loose by playing a joke on a teammate or dressing like a superhero.

So far, trying to stop him is no joke. If he keeps up his prolific scoring pace, Lewis could well be the City player of the year.

“That’s extra,” he said of the honor. “All I really care about is getting the [championship] ring.”

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Sylmar has employed late-game heroics to advance to the Championship semifinals on Friday for the first time since 1997.

The fifth-seeded Spartans needed a goal-line stand to defeat L.A. Jefferson, 13-6, in the first round and then knocked off a dangerous Harbor City Narbonne team in the quarterfinals, 27-24, on quarterback Terry Newsome’s eight-yard pass to Joe Dickson in double overtime.

“It’s nice to be back,” said Coach Jeff Engilman, who has won two section titles at Sylmar.

“But then everywhere you look, everyone is saying, ‘Now you’ve got to play Venice.’ We’re going to try to see if we can get 12 or 13 men on the field against them.”

Engilman said there is no way the Spartans can win if they get into a shootout, adding the Gondoliers’ often-overlooked defense deserves respect.

“Their defense is no joke,” he said. “Any time you can shut out Crenshaw and basically destroy Gardena the way they did, you have to be good. It’s going to be a formidable task.”

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The prolific tailback tandem of Stafon Johnson and Jeremiah Johnson eventually powered top-seeded Dorsey to a come-from-behind 33-15 quarterfinal victory over Granada Hills, but the contributions of Christopher Owens and Marquise Charles cannot be ignored.

The two intercepted passes by Granada Hills quarterback Brandon Charls in the first half that helped the Dons stay within striking distance. Charles intercepted a pass in the end zone in the second quarter after Granada Hills had a first down at the Dorsey 13-yard line.

Owens later made an acrobatic interception on a flea-flicker when Granada Hills receiver Darion Donnelly got behind the Dons’ defense. The Highlanders eventually took a 9-0 lead into intermission, but Dorsey Coach Paul Knox said the deficit could have been much worse.

“Our defense held on and it allowed us to get back in the game,” Knox said.

The Johnsons took over in the second half, scoring four touchdowns.