Wendell \u201cWoWo\u201d Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Long Beach Poly girls\u2019 volleyball team made a statement in their first-round CIF-SS Division 2 playoff match against Campbell Hall. Playing against a solid Vikings squad the No. 2-seeded Jackrabbits announced themselves as contenders with a sweep victory of the visitors, 25-17, 25-23, 25-14.<\/p>\n
The Jackrabbits (27-7, 8-0) never trailed in the match, used only one timeout, and now advance to the Division 2 quarterfinals next Tuesday on the road at Sherman Oaks Notre Dame. By advancing to the Division 2 quarters, the Jackrabbits have also clinched a berth in the CIF State playoffs.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first round, I thought that we handled our emotions well,\u201d said Poly coach Gerald Aquiningoc. \u201cThe focus of the last couple practices was to control our emotions and not play too high. When we do that we can make some uncharacteristic errors.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poly piled up nine aces but weren\u2019t as dominant from the back line as they\u2019ve often been this year, letting the Vikings operate in system much of the evening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wasn\u2019t really too happy with our service pressure today, even though probably stat-wise it looked good,\u201d said Aquiningoc.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Jackrabbits jumped out to an 11-5 lead in the first set, a 12-6 lead in set two, and a 12-5 lead in set three. The Vikings did challenge Poly in the second set as they pulled to within a point twice at 22-1 and 23-22, but the Jackrabbits pulled away on a kill by Avery Milburn and another by McKenna Iamaleava.<\/p>\n
Poly was led by 13 kills from Saleema and 12 by Iamaleava.<\/p>\n
\u201cAleeya played really well tonight, I was really happy for her,\u201d said Aquiningoc.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Saleema said the team\u2019s focus was on staying even and measured throughout the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe came out strong, that second set we got a little caught up emotionally, but tomorrow is another chance to come out to practice and get better,\u201d she said. \u201cI thought we controlled our emotions really well overall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cheeky Talaga had three aces and Cika Talaga had a pair, while Salima, Mina Orbiso, and Keola Napoleon Alvarez each had one. Middle blocker Allison Wetteland had a strong game with three blocks.<\/p>\n
Aquiningoc said that it\u2019s important to not just focus on technique when playoff time comes.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this time of the year the emotional part of it is the most important part,\u201d he said. \u201cSo you\u2019re correcting in practice and then the game time you\u2019re just encouraging and pushing them forward.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of high school volleyball in 2026 is brought to you by the MLP\u2019s Bay Area Breakers.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-503187","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\/503187","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=503187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}