{"id":132906,"date":"2026-01-14T07:31:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T07:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/132906\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T07:31:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T07:31:06","slug":"wilson-drops-long-beach-poly-on-senior-night-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/132906\/","title":{"rendered":"Wilson Drops Long Beach Poly on Senior Night \u2013 The562.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

The562\u2019s coverage of aquatic sports in Long Beach in 2025-26 is sponsored by\u00a0Watersafe Swim School.<\/a><\/p>\n

The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by\u00a0Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.<\/a><\/p>\n

The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Former Jackrabbits\u00a0Wendell \u201cWoWo\u201d Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Wilson Bruins showed love to the Class of 2026 prior to Tuesday night\u2019s Moore League matchup against crosstown rivals Long Beach Poly.<\/p>\n

Then, an all-senior starting lineup got in the pool and showed the Bruins\u2019 dominance in a 23-5 victory over the Jackrabbits at the brand new Wilson Aquatics Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a good weekend this past weekend, and we\u2019re sitting in the top six or seven in Open (Division) right now, so we just wanted to see some of the things we worked on last night, and we saw some of it there,\u201d said Wilson head coach Barry O\u2019Dea of his team\u2019s performance. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to be respectful of everybody in the league, but we have Newport tomorrow, so there\u2019s some things we can\u2019t slow down too much on. Finding a balance in that is always hard to do, but they did well tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson sophomore Bella Salley-Najjarian scored a game-high five goals\u2013all in the second quarter\u2013to lead her team to the lopsided victory. The Bruins won the second quarter 7-0 to pull away for a 13-2 lead at halftime.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was fun to have awesome teammates. And I think going into that second quarter, we knew we needed to pick it up,\u201d said Salley-Najjarian. \u201cWe came out and did what we were good at: looking for cross passes, countering hard, finishing our shots, and execution. That\u2019s been our whole theme this year is execution, and working on our passes.\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Dea made sure to expand his rotation for the occasion, even making changes to his starting lineup. Senior Jasmine Atalla, playing water polo for the first time this year, got her first varsity start for the Bruins on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Other 12th graders who are fixtures in the lineup put up some good numbers as well, with senior Kate Tunnicliff recording four goals and classmates Reece Haga and Grace Walker each recording a hat trick. They\u2019re part of the first graduating class to use the new aquatics facility at Wilson, and have seen the program steadily rise up the rankings during their careers.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the seniors here have been so supportive, and everybody has been so amazing,\u201d said Tunnicliff, reflecting on her career as a Bruin. \u201cAnd getting to experience it in a new pool has been so amazing \u2026 My whole career here, we\u2019ve worked up our rankings, and now we\u2019re in the Open Division, we\u2019re seeded pretty well. And so now getting to have a new pool just to validate our hard work is so rewarding, and I\u2019m thankful to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Bruins even got senior goalie Teagan Shandrew-Pearsall out of the cage, and she was able to score a goal for Wilson in the fourth quarter. A total of 11 different Bruins scored on the night.<\/p>\n

On the other end of the pool, Poly was led by two goals apiece from Sequoia Newman and Pearl Taylor.<\/p>\n

Wilson will be back in the pool on Wednesday at Newport Harbor before returning to league play next Tuesday at Millikan. Next up for Long Beach Poly is a trip to Sherman Oaks Notre Dame on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of aquatic sports in Long Beach in 2025-26 is sponsored by\u00a0Watersafe Swim School. The562\u2019s coverage of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132907,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-132906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132906","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=132906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}