San Diego Player of the Week : Gibson Has a Dream Game With a Score for Each Catch

Brian Gibson of Clairemont High School knew something would happen last Friday afternoon.

Maybe Clairemont would get its first football victory in five games. And even if the team lost again, Gibson had a feeling that someone would have a big individual game.

It wasn’t likely it would be Gibson.

The wide receiver didn’t have a catch in Clairemont’s previous game. That had been the first game for which he was eligible this season because his father and he had only recently moved into the area from Boston.

But Gibson, The Times’ Player of the Week, did have a dream game, even though his team lost, 28-20, to Point Loma. The three passes were 80-, 92- and 59-yard plays, all touchdowns.

“All week I was dreaming about the game,” Gibson said. “I felt something would happen, either we would get beat bad or do something big. We got serious toward game time, when most of the team was at (center) Ramone Madigal’s house. No one was talking. We just looked at each other.”

In the CIF San Diego Section, Gibson’s 231 yards receiving rank as the sixth best single-game performance ever, and his average of 77 yards per catch ranks third. The record, an average of 80 yards for two receptions, was set by Billy Moreland of Helix in 1976.

“He has great hands and very good speed,” Coach Hal Krupens said of Gibson. “But the biggest thing about him is his drive to go after the ball. He is unique because he will do everything he can to get the ball. He is also a great broken-field runner because he is very tough to tackle one-on-one. We keep looking at (Friday’s) films and he really did a job.”

The first two catches came on long passes from quarterback LaMont Jackson, who completed only four passes in the game. Gibson simply outran defenders for an 80-yard score in the first period and 92 in the second. In the fourth quarter, he took the ball away from two defenders in the middle of the field and sprinted for the score.

“That ball,” Krupens said, “shouldn’t even have been thrown.”

Gibson said he knew he could beat his defenders.

“I could tell I had the cornerbacks beat,” Gibson said. “It felt like they were jogging, but I was sprinting.”

He also knows he can’t win by himself.

“It’s a team game,” Gibson said. “You can’t think ahead, and that’s what some players do when they lose a game. You have to think one step at a time and some players are starting to understand that. We really wanted to prove that we could play with Point Loma and we did.