Downey’s Magaña is named Defensive Player of the Year by MaxPreps

MaxPreps.com, the national high school sports website, began keeping statistics in 2004. Since that time, nobody in the Sac-Joaquin Section has intercepted more passes in a season than Downey High’s Jakob Magaña.

The 5-foot-8, 140-pound senior picked off 14 passes this season, the highest total in California, and for his efforts has been named MaxPreps’ All-Sac-Joaquin Section Defensive Player of the Year.

“I thought it was really cool,” Magaña said. “It’s awesome that people recognize what I’ve done. It felt like all my hard work had paid off.”

In addition to Magaña, Modesto Christian running back Chris Brown was named all-section Sophomore of the Year, while Central Catholic’s Roger Canepa was named the all-section medium schools division’s Coach of the Year. Fifteen other players from The Bee’s Stanislaus District were named to the section’s first or second team.

Magaña landed in good company, as Folsom High’s Jake Browning, in line for a bevy of state and national awards, was named MaxPreps’ Offensive Player of the Year.

Browning led the Bulldogs to a 16-0 record and a CIF Division I state title. The 6-foot-2, 185-pound senior, who will play for Washington next season, threw for 5,790 yards and a national-record 91 touchdown passes with just seven interceptions this season. For his career, Browning totaled nearly 17,000 yards while completing 70 percent of his passes, a staggering 229 of which went for touchdowns.

Magaña went seven consecutive weeks with at least one interception and twice (against Beyer and Gregori) picked off three passes in one game. As the interception total rose, so did the notion that he might receive some postseason accolades.

“I definitely thought I’d get some recognition for league,” Magaña said. “I was hoping for others, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But I did kind of want it.”

Nationally, Magaña trailed only Irving Manriquez of Del Norte High in Albuquerque, N.M, who had 17. But leading the state and being No. 2 in the country is something he still can’t quite grasp.

“That’s a little hard to get my head around because it doesn’t seem real,” Magaña said. “As from it being on the Internet, it’s not something that’s right here in front of me. It doesn’t seem completely real to me.”

Brown finished the season with 1,604 rushing yards and 25 touchdowns. He burst onto the scene with 114 yards on 12 carries in his varsity debut Sept. 5 against Sacramento’s Capital Christian, the eventual D-V section champion. Brown had at least 100 rushing yards in all but one game – a 63-0 blowout of Riverbank in which he had just five carries for 51 yards – and a high of 249 in a 76-41 playoff win over Rio Vista.

“He’s got just about everything you’d want,” said Modesto Christian coach Mike Parsons. “Great work ethic … he’s got the vision … he’s got a change of direction. And people probably underestimate his power. You don’t want to arm-tackle him. And he’s got that top-end speed to get away from people.”

Canepa was honored by MaxPreps for a third straight season after guiding the Raiders to a third consecutive D-IV state crown.

Over the past three seasons, Central Catholic has played 47 games, winning 41. The Raiders defeated St. Margaret’s (San Juan Capistrano) 31-19 last month.

“You get rewards when the team plays hard and you have great assistant coaches,” Canepa said. “It’s great for the program.”

This story was originally published January 8, 2015 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Downey’s Magaña is named Defensive Player of the Year by MaxPreps."