{"id":82514,"date":"2023-12-25T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-12-25T19:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=82514"},"modified":"2023-12-25T12:45:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-25T19:45:59","slug":"mid-valley-sports-2023-player-of-the-year-owen-long-la-serna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=82514","title":{"rendered":"Mid Valley Sports 2023 Player of the Year: Owen Long-La Serna"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"842\" height=\"1024\" src=\"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Owen-Long-vs-wARREN.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-81802\" srcset=\"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Owen-Long-vs-wARREN.jpg 842w, https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Owen-Long-vs-wARREN-247x300.jpg 247w, https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Owen-Long-vs-wARREN-58x70.jpg 58w, https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Owen-Long-vs-wARREN-768x934.jpg 768w, https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Owen-Long-vs-wARREN-123x150.jpg 123w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 842px) 100vw, 842px\" \/><figcaption>La Serna&#8217;s Owen Long is the Mid Valley Sports Player 2023 of the Year. (Photo by Duane Barker).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>La Serna won the Del Rio League. La Serna won the CIF Division 4 championship and finally the State Bowl 2-AA State title. The Lancers had several players that contributed to the successful season but at the forefront of it all, leading the charge, was Owen Long. <\/p>\n\n\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n\n\n<p>Long played on both sides of the ball and he did it extraordinarily well. Everybody talks about offensive numbers and Long was indeed a huge part of the Lancers&#8217; offense. He ran for 1,431 yards and 26 touchdowns averaging 9.7 yards per carry. And he could catch the ball out of the backfield as well with 17 receptions for 173 yards and a touchdown on the season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the CIF title run he rushed for 541 yards and 10 touchdowns in the four games combined including 160 yards and four scores in the championship game against Corona Del Mar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All those statistics are great and a testament to Long&#8217;s talent. But take a look at the defensive numbers. From his free safety or linebacker position, depending on what defense La Serna was in, Long had 75 solo tackles and 64 assisted for a total of 139. He also had two interceptions. Long was just as important on defense in stopping opponents as he was in making the offense go. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Long was exceptional on offense and defense and was instrumental in leading his team to not just a CIF championship but a State title as well.  For these accomplishments Owen Long is the Mid Valley Sports 2023 Player of the Year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>La Serna won the Del Rio League. La Serna won the CIF Division 4 championship and finally the State Bowl 2-AA State title. The Lancers had several players that contributed to the successful season but at the forefront of it all, leading the charge, was Owen Long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12816,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hsfootball","category-high-school-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82514"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82525,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82514\/revisions\/82525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}