Prep talk: Simi Valley’s Izak Simpson, recruited off basketball court, becomes football star

Jim Benkert, the football coach at Simi Valley High, proudly tells the story of how he discovered defensive end Izak Simpson. Benkert was the scoreboard operator at a basketball game when he asked Simpson, then a freshman, why he didn’t play football.

Simpson went out for the team as a sophomore, learned everything from scratch, and the rest is history. The 6-foot-2, 250-pounder had 14 sacks last season and has 15 sacks this season as Simi Valley prepares to face Edison on Friday for the Southern Section Division 3 championship at Huntington Beach.

Even though Simpson has family members who were football players, including a
grandfather who played for the Dallas Cowboys, basketball was his sport until Benkert encouraged him to try football.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he said of that first season.

He has come to love football and enjoy his teammates. “I’m 100% happy,” he said. ...

Mater Dei‘s Raul Lara coached some pretty good football championship teams at Long Beach Poly, including 2001 with future Hall of Fame tight end Marcedes Lewis on the team, but he has told coaches that this year’s Monarchs team is his most talented. ...

Oxnard Pacifica receivers Isaiah Dillon (left) and Savion Taylor.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Oxnard Pacifica has made it to the Division 4 final against St. Bonaventure thanks to a terrific receiving duo. Savion Taylor has 89 receptions for 1,212 yards and 14 touchdowns in his first year back from a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Isaiah Dillon has caught 46 passes for 825 yards and nine touchdowns. St. Bonaventure won the first meeting against Pacifica 37-35 on Oct. 11 with a last-second field goal.