Junior Lemauu stepping up

Junior to Watch: Junior Lemau’u.

School: Long Beach (Calif.) Poly

Position: Defensive End/Tight End.

Size and Speed: Junior stands 6-foot-5, weighs in at 240 pounds and runs the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds. Lemau’u benches 405 pounds and squats 500 pounds.

Statistics: Junior led Poly in sacks with 12. He also accounted for over 60 tackles, 20 tackles for loss, four fumbles caused and two fumbles recovered.

Honors: Lemau’u is an all-CIF, all-area and all-league selection as a junior.

Favorite Schools: Junior has offers from USC, Oregon, Kansas and Colorado. He has offers pending from UCLA and Arizona. Junior also likes Miami. Junior is keeping his options open but he did admit he grew up watching USC and the Trojans were his childhood favorite.

The Skinny: “Junior is determined to be successful. He works incredibly hard and doesn’t take shortcuts,” Poly head coach Raul Lara said. “Junior has a great big body and he can really move.” After recently seeing Junior on tape Rivals.com concurs with coach Lara.

Lemau’u is a very smooth and fluid athlete who can bring the hammer. Junior is very aggressive and physical. Though Junior was double teamed some last season, he was pretty much able to go one-on-one because Manuel Wright (USC bound) was getting plenty of attention during the season of 2001.

Look for Junior to attract the same kind of double team attention of his former teammate Manuel Wright. Opponents will have a bull’s eye on Junior this season. We don’t think that will slow Lemau’u down any. Rivals asked the talented Lemau’u how he was going to handle all the attention he will receive in the fall of 2002. “I will do whatever needs to be done to help the team win,” Junior said. “If the double teams that are aimed to stop me help another teammate make the play and we win, then it will be fine. Manuel (Wright) was double-teamed a lot last season and that opened things up for me. The team comes first,” Lemau’u said.

Junior may also start at the tight end position this season. He played tight end last season when the situation called for another physical blocker. “They will throw me the ball this season,” Junior said. “I was used on running plays.”

Junior is another great player coming out of Long Beach (Calif.) Poly this season. He’s a tremendous player in a remarkable program.

Rivals will report on every Poly recruit this season and believe it or not, there are MORE!

Stay tuned…