New Kid on the Mater Dei Block

It’s time to meet Jamal Sampson.

The Capistrano Valley boys’ basketball team sure did on Wednesday night.

Or at least the Cougars met the basketballs, nine of them, that Sampson blocked into their faces, their heads, their chests.

Sampson is a 6-foot-10, 15-year-old sophomore center for Mater Dei, and if you’re wondering where he has been, it’s been mostly on the bench recovering from, first, a stress fracture in his foot and then a broken bone on his left hand.

But Wednesday night Sampson got his first start of the season, and, pow, two minutes later, swatted away the layup attempt of Capistrano Valley’s J.J. Sola, a 6-foot-7 forward with tattooed upper arms the size of redwoods.

Less than a minute after that Sola, a senior who already has accepted a basketball scholarship to Loyola Marymount, practically had to duck when Sampson blocked another shot.

The Cougars went scoreless in the first quarter, which is totally embarrassing when you’re the second-ranked team in Orange County playing the top-ranked team.

A large part of that defensive wipeout was because of Sampson and his long arms and quick legs and smart reflexes and the four shots he blocked in that quarter, three of which Mater Dei recovered. Capistrano Valley’s inside game disappeared in fear of this angular, cerebral youngster who never tried to do too much and was, by the way, playing with his left hand heavily bandaged.

Who is Jamal Sampson and why was he doing these terrible things to the team that, besides Sola, also has Nathan Hair, a senior who has signed to play at USC next season?

Sampson is a transfer from Westchester High in Los Angeles and so there will be the whispers about big, bad Mater Dei and the way it attracts athletes from other places. But Sampson’s mother, Ruth Smith, has a good explanation for why her son has come to Mater Dei. She checked out three high schools for her son, athletics and academics, and Mater Dei was the best. “Period,” Smith said.

Smith, who is 6 feet 4, played college basketball at the University of Houston and is a cousin of former Virginia star Ralph Sampson. Smith works for the Federal Bureau of Prisons and was working in Miami when her son was ready to start high school. Unhappy with the schools in Miami, Smith says she sent Sampson to Los Angeles to live with her mother, Hilda. And while Smith was interested in academics, her son had another concern last year.

“I didn’t get to play much at Westchester,” Sampson said after Wednesday night’s game, which Mater Dei won, 68-53. He finished with 12 points and 13 rebounds besides the nine blocked shots.

Sampson is a thoughtful and well-spoken teenager who accepted all the back-slapping, hand-shaking congratulations with a modest nod and some whispered words about being able to do better next time.

He wanted to talk, first, about his limitations, about how his still-aching hand made it wise for him to take only shots that qualified as layups or dunks, which is what Sampson did. About his shot-blocking ability, Sampson said that “it kind of comes naturally. I just seem to have a knack.”

There were two rebounds Sampson had where his arms seemed to keep extending, neatly and quickly, as long as he needed them to go until he was able to grab the ball. The faces of those potential rebounders below him registered first shock, and then despair. There was nothing they could have done, not jumped higher or faster or been in any better position.

During timeouts and between quarters, there was a 6-foot-10 man with a graying beard and receding hairline who would crouch into a defensive stance or take up position in the lane and move Sampson around with gentle pushes in the back. Or he might help raise Sampson’s arms into the right angles.

His name is Mark Soderberg, father of another Mater Dei sophomore, 6-foot-9 Erik Soderberg.

Mark Soderberg played some basketball in his time. At the University of Kentucky, Soderberg said, “two years after Dan Issel.” Soderberg played professionally overseas for about nine years and when Erik entered high school last year, Soderberg decided to help Coach Gary McKnight and his staff.

“I’d like to help the post men,” Soderberg said. “I think we’ve got some talent.”

His eyes widen when Soderberg speaks of Sampson’s shot-blocking ability. “A lot of that, it’s ingrained,” he said. “Kids either have it or they don’t. Jamal has it. And the kid doesn’t even turn 16 until May. He’s still growing.

“A lot of what he’s doing is just instinct right now. With the injuries, he just hasn’t played enough. But watch this kid.”

Soderberg agrees that Sampson has unusual control of his still-expanding body. Unlike many big, gangly kids, Sampson is comfortable with his size. He runs smoothly and always knows where all his body parts are.

Sampson played on an eighth-grade club team that included Erik Soderberg and Tyson Chandler, a star at Compton Dominguez.

On Saturday, Dominguez and Mater Dei will be part of the Nike Extravaganza, which will present a collection of high school teams from around the state and the country. Perennial-power Oak Hill Academy from Virginia will play Dominguez. Mater Dei will play Oakland Bishop O’Dowd in the last two games of the eight-game “extravaganza” at Cal State Fullerton.

On a flyer to promote the event, players such as Sola and Hair from Capistrano Valley; Chandler, Steve Scoggin, Mike Bayer and Cedric Bozeman of Mater Dei and nationally recruited Oak Hill players Steve Blake, Ron Slay and Travis Watson are advertised. There is no mention of Sampson.

But the sophomore will start Saturday and he is eager for this large stage. He kind of wishes he could play Chandler and Compton, but there may be time for that in the next couple of years.

And one suspects the next time a Mater Dei team that has Sampson in the lineup plays in a big tournament, Sampson’s name will be on the flyer. Just try and keep him off.

Diane Pucin can be reached at: diane.pucin@latimes.com