Friday was just another day at the office for Darnell Miller.<\/p>\n
Santee\u2019s senior running back arrived on time, rushed for 190 yards and three touchdowns, and clocked out early as the Falcons soared past Hawkins 35-6 to win the City Section Division III championship at Birmingham High.<\/p>\n
Watching from the sideline, as he does almost every game, was Darnell\u2019s 10-year-old brother, Frederick, a fifth-grader at Twenty-Eighth Street Elementary who Darnell picks up from school and brings to practice every day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I love most about this sport is all the friends I\u2019ve made. \u2026 I\u2019m a shy person, but it\u2019s made me more vocal, taught me discipline and to take care of my responsibilities,\u201d said Miller, who likes football best despite also playing guard on the basketball team in the winter and running for the track team in the spring. \u201cI just do what I do. This is my last year, so I want to finish strong.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Darnell Miller and his 10-year-old brother, Frederick, pose with the City championship trophy and plaque after Santee\u2019s victory in Division III.<\/p>\n
(Steve Galluzzo \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
Miller began the day averaging 15.1 yards per carry, having rushed for 3,103 yards and 37 touchdowns, and wasted no time adding to those totals against the second-seeded Hawks (10-3). He ended Santee\u2019s first drive with an 11-yard touchdown run, added a five-yarder in the second quarter and a nine-yarder in the third quarter to make it 35-0. Quarterback Daynian Alvarado scored the Falcons\u2019 other two touchdowns on runs of one and 13 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cDarnell is a very hard working, humble young man and everything you want a captain to be,\u201d said Santee coach John Petty, who guided the Falcons to their only other City title in 2018. \u201cHe\u2019s the first person in the locker room and the last to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n
The win wrapped up a dominant run for the No. 1-seeded Falcons (10-4), who defeated their four playoff opponents by an average margin of 29 points.<\/p>\n
The Hawks averted the shutout midway through the fourth quarter when Justin Cortez capped a 10-play, 55-yard drive with a five-yard scoring run.<\/p>\n
His job done, Miller got to sit out the entire fourth quarter after upping his touchdown count to 43 touchdowns this season (40 rushing, one receiving and two on kickoff returns). Despite impressive stats, Miller has received only one scholarship offer \u2014 from Pikeville, an NAIA program in Kentucky.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy goal is to keep playing, wherever that is,\u201d Miller said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Friday was just another day at the office for Darnell Miller. Santee\u2019s senior running back arrived on time,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[43341,43337,43336,217,43339,43340,17949,16945,42129,48,52,51,47,50,49,2668,4891,43338,315,780,1539],"class_list":["post-74269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-10-play","tag-city-section-championship-win","tag-darnell-miller","tag-day","tag-falcon","tag-falcons","tag-first-drive","tag-fourth-quarter","tag-hawkins","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-run","tag-santee","tag-second-seeded-hawks","tag-time","tag-touchdown","tag-yard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}