{"id":62496,"date":"2018-01-04T12:00:19","date_gmt":"2018-01-04T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=62496"},"modified":"2018-01-04T19:14:26","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T02:14:26","slug":"mid-valley-player-of-the-year-baraq-ross-downey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=62496","title":{"rendered":"Mid Valley Player of the Year: Baraq Ross &#8211; Downey"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_62313\" style=\"width: 578px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?attachment_id=62313\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-62313\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-62313\" class=\"size-full wp-image-62313\" src=\"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/IMG_5597-568x640.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"568\" height=\"640\" srcset=\"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/IMG_5597-568x640.jpg 568w, http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/IMG_5597-568x640-62x70.jpg 62w, http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/IMG_5597-568x640-266x300.jpg 266w, http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/IMG_5597-568x640-133x150.jpg 133w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 568px) 100vw, 568px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-62313\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Downey running back Baraq Ross is the Mid Valley Sports Player of the Year. (Photo by Duane Barker)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A Most Valuable Player is a player that the team could not live without. He does a little bit of everything whether on offense or defense. He&#8217;s they type of player that if you removed him from the equation it could be the difference between first and fourth place.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>A player of the Year on the other hand is a guy whose numbers are simply too big to ignore. He may be surrounded by other great players but he is usually the one that stands out- the player that does something amazing every game.<\/p>\n<p>In 2017 Downey&#8217;s Baraq Ross was that player. He rushed for over 200 yards in a game four different times during the season and finished with 2,303 overall leading Downey to the CIF Division 4 Championship game. He averaged 8.3 yards per carry and had 31 rushing touchdowns on the season including 3 against Capistrano Valley in the semi finals and 3 more vs. Cajon in the finals.<\/p>\n<p>Ross could catch the ball out of the backfield as well. He hauled in 21 receptions for 364 yards and 3 touchdowns on the year. He found time to play defense as well with 18 total tackles from his cornerback position.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He truly is a difference maker. If it wasn&#8217;t for him and his athleticism we might not have pulled off some of he close games we won, especially against Corona Del Mar,&#8221; said Downey assistant Michael Gutierrez. Ross had 197 yards and a touchdown in that second round playoff game.<\/p>\n<p>Ross was a factor in every game for the Vikings putting up numbers that are hard to imagine. He is our Mid Valley Sports Player of the Year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Most Valuable Player is a player that the team could not live without. He does a little bit of everything whether on offense or defense. He&#8217;s they type of player that if you removed him from the equation it could be the difference between first and fourth place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816],"tags":[13062,13022,13063,13023,12467,8273,13064],"class_list":["post-62496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball","tag-baraq-ross","tag-cajon-football","tag-capistrano-valley-football","tag-cif-division-4-finals","tag-corona-del-mar-football","tag-downey-football","tag-michael-gutierrez"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62496"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62522,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62496\/revisions\/62522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}