Daily Pilot High School Football Player of the Week: Leonard is a running machine
Unlike the other five high schools in Huntington Beach, Brethren Christian isn’t located on a busy street. The tiny campus is a couple of blocks away from Atlanta Avenue.
The larger and more well-known school nearby is Edison, which is a 1.2-mile walk away. Pat McInally, the Brethren Christian football coach, likes to joke that Edison thinks the private school plays eight-man football.
Most know Brethren Christian because it used to have a 7-foot-5 basketball player named Mamadou Ndiaye three years ago. The biggest star on campus these days is almost two feet shorter.
Meet Jordan Leonard, a football player at Brethren Christian. Despite his 5-7 frame, he is the “Jordan” of high school running backs in Orange County.
A year ago, Leonard led the county in rushing yards (2,637) and rushing touchdowns (39). While he’s not quite on pace to reach those astronomical numbers in his senior season, Leonard turned in his best performance of the year last week.
Sixteen carries is all Leonard needed to amass 278 yards. Five of those rushes went for touchdowns, the longest an 80-yarder in the second quarter that pretty much put away Azusa.
Leonard ran past Azusa in the Warriors’ 69-7 win at Citrus College in Glendora. The best part of the game for Leonard was the site of it.
“It was pretty exciting, just to get that feel of playing on a college field, [inside a] big stadium,” said Leonard, who credited his offensive line, left tackle Anthony Lopez, left guard Jalen Liva, center Brandon Larsen, right guard John Johnson and right tackle Dominic Ramirez, for his success.
Playing college football is what Leonard wants to do after high school. A half an hour away from the stadium he ran wild in is a potential college for Leonard. He said Pomona-Pitzer, an NCAA Division III program, has shown some interest in him.
Pomona-Pitzer has everything Leonard, who said he has close to a 4.0 grade-point average, looks for in a school: top academics and a small-school environment. He wasn’t always at a small school like Brethren Christian, which has an enrollment of 253 students.
Leonard said he attended Los Alamitos High as a freshman, and then decided to transfer to Brethren Christian. He said his friend, Nathan Sagastume, now a teammate of his with the Warriors, told him about Brethren Christian, and he made the move.
While it’s not hard for Leonard to maneuver on the football field, weaving in and out of traffic on the 405 Freeway can at times be troublesome. He said he still lives in Los Alamitos, and his father, Bryan, drives him to school and picks him up.
“I get up a little bit earlier, but it’s worth it. I like the school,” said Leonard, adding that he leaves his Los Alamitos home around 7:15 a.m. to make in time for school at 8. “It was actually pretty easy [adjusting from a campus with more than 3,000 students to one with less than 300 students]. It was a little weird at first, because at a public school you don’t really see everybody every day. Then here [at Brethren Christian] you see everybody every single day, so you get to really develop a friendship with everybody.”
With Leonard’s arrival, the team also changed the way it attacked defenses out of its spread offense during his junior year.
“We were probably the top passing team with El Toro, [then Leonard showed up],” McInally said. “We set the Orange County record in passing touchdowns, [46 by Conner Miller in 2014, when Leonard] was only a sophomore. He only played like three or four games because he had transferred in from Los Al [and suffered an injury when he was eligible]. Then we became a running team last year. We can still throw it.”
The team isn’t airing it out as much as it used to with Miller, but quarterback Joey Gutierrez completed nine of 10 passes for 207 yards and three touchdowns last week. Two of those completions went to Leonard, who took a screen pass and raced in for a 50-yard touchdown.
The touchdown catch marked the first for Leonard, who has 12 touchdowns on the year. For a career, Leonard has 53 touchdowns, 52 coming on the ground.
Finding the end zone won’t be so easy for Leonard in the next game. Brethren Christian (4-1), ranked No. 8 in the CIF Southern Section Division 10 poll, is playing its first home game at Ocean View High, where it faces Temecula Rancho Christian (3-1), No. 7 in Division 13.
“It’s going to be a really good game,” McInally said. “Coach [Jim] Kunau [is in charge of Rancho Christian]. He was a legend at Orange Lutheran, won the [CIF State Division II] title [with the Lancers in 2006].
“We [beat Rancho Christian, 49-26], in the quarterfinals [of the CIF Southern Section East Valley Division playoffs] last year. I’m sure he’s been thinking about that. He’s a great coach and they’re a good team, so this will be a good test for us at home.”
Jordan Leonard
Born: May 7, 1999
Hometown: Los Alamitos
Height: 5-foot-7
Weight: 160 pounds
Sport: Football
Year: Senior
Coach: Pat McInally
Favorite food: Spaghetti
Favorite movie: “Remember the Titans”
Favorite athletic moment: “[Winning] the Crean [Lutheran] game last year.”
Week in review: Leonard rushed 16 times for 278 yards and five touchdowns and caught a 50-yard touchdown pass in the Warriors’ 69-7 win against Azusa.
