Blazing a Western trail

Warriors' offense, defense playing in perfect fashion

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It's no longer all quiet on the Western front.

After going just 3-8 overall and 2-3 in the Southwest Division last year, the Western High School football team is in the process of completing one of the most impressive one-year turnarounds as has been seen on the gridiron in Las Vegas in some time, starting this season off in perfect fashion, going 7-0 overall and 5-0 in Southwest play.

Despite several down years and a trend that has seen most of the extremely talented teams of late coming from the newer suburban areas of metropolitan Las Vegas like Palo Verde in Summerlin and Foothill in Henderson, second-year coach Brian Murray has done a phenomenal job of resurrecting the program at one of the valley's oldest and most central schools.

Although he was happy with the unblemished start, Murray wasn't the least bit surprised that this year's group had risen to the occasion.

"I think they're doing an outstanding job but I do have to say this is how I expected them to play," Murray said. "We had a pretty favorable schedule and I thought there were a couple of teams out there that I thought would give us more of a challenge but we just came out and played really well and were able to get the wins."

Helping the Warriors -- who won their last state football title in 1996 -- was the solid play of the defense which helped Western outscore its opponents, 245-60 after the first seven games. But Murray thought there was still a little room for improvement.

"I think we can still improve (on defense) but we've got a pretty low point total for points against so we're always looking to get better but I think they're doing a real good job so far," he commented.

Leading the way for Western's defense has been linebacker Ron Paulo, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound senior who was leading the team again this year in total tackles (73 tackles, 34 assists) and is being looked at by several major colleges including the University of Nebraska and the University of Utah.

Along with standout Paulo, fellow linebackers Dru Johnson (44 total tackles), Tyrone Sheapherd (32 tackles), Travis Degroot (4 sacks) and defensive lineman Lawrence Guy (30 tackles) were doing a great job keeping Warriors' opponents out of the end zone.

On the offensive side of the ball, Western seems to have more weapons than opponents can possibly contain. And the main component of that offense, senior quarterback Julian Sample, was simply tearing it up and doing everything he could to put points on the board by rushing and throwing for touchdowns and even kicking some extra points along the way.

After the first seven games of 2005, the 6-foot, 185-pound Sample was tied for the lead in the city with Bishop Gorman's C.J. Sedoris and Centennial's Jared Noa, with 14 touchdown passes -- and had thrown a total of 892 yards.

Sample also had rushed the ball 57 times for 587 yards (10.3 yards per carry) and scored 12 touchdowns -- both stats tops among all Las Vegas prep quarterbacks -- and also had kicked six extra points for the Warriors.

Coach Murray talked about how Sample's success this season made him feel.

"I'm really proud of him," he said. "He had a real tough year last year ... we had problems protecting him and he had some games where I'm sure he didn't play as well as he would have liked and this year he's just come out and done an outstanding job and like I said, I'm really proud of the way he's played and couldn't be happier for him. He deserves it."

Murray said Sample's play has caught the eye of some colleges.

"There's half a dozen schools that he's talking to," Murray said. "He may or may not end up at the quarterback position in college but he's such a good athlete he'll play somewhere I'm sure."

Providing another dangerous rushing threat in the Western backfield this season has been junior Dejon Hall, who at press time was the 14th leading rusher in the city, carrying the ball 86 times for 585 yards (6.8 ypc) and five touchdowns.

Despite Hall's small stature, Murray has been thrilled with his play.

"He's our starting tailback so he gets probably the majority of the carries and he's not a big kid, he's real small (5-7, 140), but he's very explosive, he hits the hole real hard and he plays a lot bigger than he is," Murray said.

Creating holes for Hall and the running backs as well as providing pass protection for Sample this season has been the superb play of the Warriors offensive line, led by seniors A.J. Castro (6-0, 285), Varon Sumler (6-3, 230), Preston Moran (6-1, 245) and junior Jon Asay (5-9, 200).

With an athletic quarterback, a hard-to-find running back and a very big and experienced offensive line, Western already had enough talent on offense but the depth at the wide receiver spot and the emergence of two younger players at the position has really made the Warriors, ranked No. 4 by the Las Vegas Review-Journal in its Oct. 13 poll -- the highest ranking for the school in years -- something special this year.

The most pleasant surprise at wide receiver has been the emergence of 6-foot-3-inch, 150-pound sophomore Phillip Payne, who was the leading Southern Nevada in touchdown receptions (10) and yards per catch (28.8) despite catching just 16 passes for 461 yards in Western's first seven contests. Murray talked about his young receiver who had scored six points every other time he touched the ball this season.

"He's amazing. He's a kid I watched play as a freshman last year and I knew that he was going to come up and contribute, I just didn't know it was going to be at his level," Murray said. "He's got real long arms and the softest hands -- he catches everything. There's not a practice that goes by where we don't look at each other as coaches and be like, 'Man, this kid is unbelievable.' "

Murray was happy with the improvement this year and cited another surfacing target the team also is happy to have entering the postseason.

"I would say offensively that I think we've made a dramatic improvement," Murray said. "We had the pieces last year but we just weren't jelling together the way they are this year. And our line has been outstanding for us. And we also have another young receiver, well he's a junior, Devi Mitchell, who's come on the last couple of games. He was a wingback for us and we weren't getting a lot of production out of him so we moved him out to receiver and he's almost as good as Philip."

So with Mitchell (7 receptions, 187 yards, 2 TDs, 26.7 ypc), Payne and senior Chris Fowler (5 receptions, 102 yards, 2 TDs), Sample has a nice problem when figuring out who to throw to. And the Sample-Payne connection has been one opponents just can't seem to stop from scoring.

"Julian's done a real nice job just putting the ball out there and Philip just goes up and gets it," Murray said. "And that's just kind of been a regular thing for us."

After playing at Spring Valley on Oct. 21 (results were unavailable at press time), Western travels to Valley High School Thursday night at 7 p.m. to play the game Murray's had circled on the calendar for a year -- that Southwest Division showdown with running back Demarco Murray and No. 3-ranked Bishop Gorman. Last year the Warriors fell to the division champ Gaels, 7-6, in a game that has stuck in the head of the returning Warriors and Murray, who said winning the conference has been the focus of his squad all season.

"These kids won't settle for anything else," Murray said. "They're determined. And we know we will have our hands full. They have a lot of weapons over there (at Bishop Gorman) but we really think that we can match up with them and do a better job than a lot of these other teams that they have been playing and blowing out."