HUNTINGTON BEACH – Kai Ross played quarterback, cornerback, safety and returned kickoffs and punts for Huntington Beach this season. Two years ago he was a receiver.
At 6-foot-2, 180 pounds and growing, the 17-year-old sees his future at free safety. Interestingly, that’s the position he’s played the least.
“I just think that position fits me,” Ross said. “I wouldn’t mind being a wildcat quarterback with a package to get the ball in my hands. But I see myself as a defensive player, especially as I grow into my body.”
Edison coach Dave White, who faced Ross four times over the years, including twice this season, has a slightly different take.
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• All-County First Team Offense
• All-County First Team Defense
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“I think he can probably play corner in the Pac-12,” White said. “He’s such a great athlete.”
As of now, Ross isn’t sure which school he’ll be playing at next year, much less what position. (Ross is committed to Montana but he is being pursued by Colorado State, UNLV and Nevada, among others.)
What he did at Huntington Beach at quarterback earned him the Register’s Offensive Player of the Year award.
“Beyond belief,” is how Ross described his senior season. “It definitely wasn’t what I expected. I was expecting more of a consistent year. But I achieved a lot of my goals.”
Those goals included 2,000 passing yards, 1,000 rushing yards, more than 28 touchdown passes and fewer than five interceptions. Ross finished with 2,291 passing yards, 810 rushing yards, 31 touchdown passes and five interceptions. (He also ran for nine touchdowns and intercepted seven passes.)
“I only missed two (goals),” Ross said.
His primary goal was getting past the second round of the playoffs, where the Oilers had been eliminated the past two seasons. A determined Ross ultimately turned the CIF-SS Southwest Division playoffs into his personal showcase.
In four postseason games – all victories – Ross threw for 597 yards and 13 touchdowns, completed 75 percent of his passes and rushed for 209 yards. And he didn’t commit a turnover.
“He was playing unbelievable football,” Huntington Beach coach Eric Lo said. “He’s a very competitive kid. He just wants to win.”
It was that competitive spirit that sometimes got the best of Ross early in the season. He admits his ability to do just about anything on a football field deceived him into believing he “needed to do everything.”
Sunset League defenses assigned a spy on Ross on nearly every play while loading the box and playing man coverage, at times begging him to throw. The dual-threat captain scuffled in the zone read as Huntington Beach lost heartbreakers to Fountain Valley and Los Alamitos and was thumped by Edison, 48-6.
Ross completed 44.5 percent of his passes in the three losses and turned the ball over four times.
“He was trying to win the game on a single play,” Lo said. “That was part of his maturation process.”
So he studied every play. On Saturdays, Ross arrived an hour early for 9 a.m. film sessions to get one-on-one feedback from his coaches. In time, he learned that he couldn’t simply rely on his mobility to break the defense’s contain.
In the semifinal against Edison, which had befuddled Ross in previous meetings, he aptly read the linebackers and burned the defense with intermediate play-action passes, leading the Oilers past the Chargers for the first time in 20 years.
“He just didn’t get rattled,” White said. “He was a confident kid. You could see that. When he got hot, the team got hot. Those kinds of guys are scary.”
The following week, in the Southwest Division championship game, Ross overwhelmed Newport Harbor with a series of screen passes, sprinkled with designed runs and deep throws that showed off his improved touch. His best throw came in the fourth quarter, as he faked a screen pass and delivered a 13-yard strike to Nolan Thompson for the go-ahead touchdown.
Lo said it was a play Ross might not have made just a few weeks earlier.
“He kind of back-shouldered it,” Lo said. “The safety was coming fast. There was a small hole to fit it in and he found it.”
Ross then returned interceptions on consecutive plays for touchdowns over the next 45 seconds to secure Huntington Beach’s first CIF title since 1935.
“It was a magical sequence,” Ross said.
Who knows where his magic will come from next.
Contact the writer: amaya@ocregister.com
