Payoff Finally Comes for Barons, Gail : Football: Standout receiver played on teams that won three games in two years. This season, Fountain Valley has a berth in Division I quarterfinals.

Wide receiver Bryan Gail can appreciate Fountain Valley High School’s 1992 football season, in which the Barons have won seven games and advanced to the second round of the Southern Section Division I playoffs.

He remembers playing on a team that won only two games when he was a junior, and a team that lost nine games in a row and allowed 313 points two years ago.

“It used to be hard going to practice every day,” he said. “Most of the players thought we were going to get beat every week. We had no confidence.

“You’d hear comments from your friends in class like, ‘How much are you going to lose by this week?’ It wasn’t a lot of fun, but I figured my time was going to come.”

Indeed, Gail’s time has come. He is among the county’s leading receivers with 45 receptions for 820 yards and seven touchdowns. Gail’s best game came against the county’s best team, Los Alamitos, when he caught 10 passes for 168 yards.

Gail began preparing for his senior year last summer when Fountain Valley participated in 30 summer passing league games and competed in three tournaments throughout Southern California.

He worked primarily to increase his speed, pushing himself to improve his starts off the line of scrimmage. He worked with his father, Steve, every night, running patterns in the street after dinner. He lifted weights four days a week.

“I started having fun,” he said. “After last season ended, everybody made a commitment to this year. We looked forward to this season.

“Our whole defense was coming back. I look back and last year was a stepping stone to this season. I learned a lot, but we didn’t have much of a passing attack last year. I was basically a blocker, not a receiver.”

Fountain Valley opened the season with a 10-7 victory over Dana Hills but then had the imposing task of playing defending Division III champion Los Alamitos in its next game and defending Division II champion Irvine the following week.

Fountain Valley lost both games, but Gail says playing quality nonleague opponents helped prepare the Barons for their Sunset League schedule.

“We played Los Alamitos tough, (28-7), but then got blown out by Irvine (35-0),” Gail said. “But playing those teams was the best thing to happen to us. We went into league confident that we could play with anybody.”

Fountain Valley proved just that when it upset league-leading Servite, 17-14, in the ninth week of the season to earn a playoff berth.

“It was the most pumped I’ve ever seen our team get before a game,” Gail said. “It was do or die for us if we wanted to get into the playoffs. And it was Servite.”

Most figured that Gail’s future would be in baseball. He was a standout infielder in youth leagues and figured to become a varsity starter by his sophomore season at Fountain Valley. But Gail, who is considering playing golf this spring, is pointing toward a career in football.

“I told his father after last season that I thought Bryan was going to be one of the top receivers in the county this year,” said Fountain Valley offensive coordinator Hank Cochrane. “He’s always been a tall, lanky kid who was never afraid to go after the ball.

“He has no fear. I think as Bryan matures, he’s going to get faster, stronger and bigger. He has a big future ahead of him. He’s one of the best blocking receivers I’ve ever coached.”

Gail has a 3.2 grade-point average and scored 1,050 on his Scholastic Aptitude Test. He said he’d like to continue playing football in college and will likely attend a community college next season.

In the meantime, he hopes to help Fountain Valley reach a divisional final for the first time since the Barons won the Division I championship in 1988.

“My older sister was going to Fountain Valley then, and I can remember going to the championship game against Bishop Amat,” Gail said. “I watched (quarterback) David Henigan and (receivers) Mike Cook and Doug Weaver that night. But playing varsity seemed so far away back then.”

LOS ALAMITOS VS. FOUNTAIN VALLEY

Featured Game

When: Friday, 7:30 p.m.

Where: Huntington Beach High School.

Records: Los Alamitos (11-0); Fountain Valley (7-3-1).

Seedings: Los Alamitos is top-seeded in Division II; Fountain Valley is unseeded.

Noteworthy: Los Alamitos has the section’s longest winning streak (18); Fountain Valley lost to Los Alamitos in the second week of the season, 28-7.