NORCO \u2014 The Long Beach Poly football team was more than ready for its playoff opener.<\/p>\n
The Jackrabbits scored on offense, defense and special teams, highlighted by junior defensive back Logan Kirk\u2019s pick-six and junior Landon Perkins\u2019 punt return for a touchdown, in a 39-17 win against Norco in the first round of the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs Friday night.<\/p>\n
Long Beach Poly sophomore quarterback Trevor Scott completed 11 of 16 passes for 200 yards, three touchdowns and one interception. Scott also ran for 60 yards and fumbled once.<\/p>\n
Poly junior receiver Zion Anderson finished with five catches for 153 yards, including including 78- and 26-yard touchdown strikes from Scott in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just knew what we had to do,\u201d Scott said. \u201cWe were really playing for the seniors and last year\u2019s seniors because they didn\u2019t get playoffs last year, so it\u2019s definitely a statement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The No. 15-seed Jackrabbits played well in all three phases of the game and improved to 7-4 overall. They will host Edison in the quarterfinals at Cabrillo High on Friday, Nov. 13.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt means a lot because it brings confidence to them,\u201d Long Beach Poly coach Travon Patterson said. \u201cNow they\u2019re locked in, and they believe and we\u2019re going to need that throughout the next week, throughout these playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norco\u2019s senior quarterback Julian Medina, the team\u2019s starter, missed the game with a knee injury. Sophomore quarterback Dylan Hansen started in Medina\u2019s place and threw two interceptions in the first half. Hansen completed 25 of 33 passes for 209 yards and three interceptions.<\/p>\n
Cougars senior receiver Blake Wong (BYU commit) caught eight passes for 119 yards.<\/p>\n
Norco, the No. 2 seed in the Division 3 bracket, finished the season 6-5.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s extremely frustrating when you have the ball more than 90% of the (first) quarter and have zero points,\u201d Norco coach Daniel Barlage said.<\/p>\n
Kirk\u2019s 42-yard interception return for a touchdown put his team up 7-0 with 10:17 left in the first quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re in the right position, the play comes right to you,\u201d Kirk said. \u201cI give credit to my defensive line, my linebackers.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poly sophomore defensive lineman Elijah Day\u2019s interception stopped Norco just outside the red zone with 5:33 left in the first.<\/p>\n
Norco\u2019s 32-yard field goal cut it to 7-3 with 10:38 left in the second quarter.<\/p>\n
Scott\u2019s 12-yard touchdown pass to senior receiver Jayden Coley, followed by senior running back Jeron Johnson II\u2019s 2-point conversion out of a swinging gate formation, made it 15-3 with 8:14 left in the second.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s win or go home, so we\u2019re trying to put our bodies on the line for the win,\u201d Scott explained.<\/p>\n
Poly\u2019s 29-yard field goal made it 18-3 with 4:52 to go before halftime.<\/p>\n
Norco recovered an onside kick to start the second half, but the play was called back due to a penalty.<\/p>\n
Scott threw an interception in the end zone to Norco senior defensive back Kenneth Carter with 10:47 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
Poly senior defensive back Julius Johnson, a five-star UCLA commit, intercepted the ball at the Norco 30 with 10:09 left in the third.<\/p>\n
Scott, who had already gained 55 rushing yards on his first three carries, fumbled the ball at the Norco 10, which was recovered by the Cougars in the end zone with 8:38 left in the third.<\/p>\n
However, Norco did not capitalize and punted it away to Perkins, who returned it 67 yards for a score, which made it 25-3 with 5:38 left in the third quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201c(Perkins is) a guy that\u2019s always asking for the opportunity and every time he gets an opportunity, he takes advantage of it,\u201d Patterson said. \u201cThat was a big time punt return as it opened up the lead more and took the life out of Norco.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norco senior receiver Riley Scheppmann\u2019s 4-yard touchdown run out of a wildcat formation cut it to 25-10 with 49.3 seconds left in the third.<\/p>\n
Anderson\u2019s 78-yard catch-and-run touchdown, made it it 32-10 early in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
Poly\u2019s defense sacked Hansen and forced a turnover on downs inside the red zone with 8:41 left in the fourth.<\/p>\n
Anderson\u2019s 26-yard leaping touchdown catch made it 39-10 with 5:11 remaining.<\/p>\n
Norco senior running back Trevor Schneider\u2019s 1-yard touchdown run made it 39-17 with 48.5 seconds to go.<\/p>\n
Poly recovered Norco\u2019s onside kick and kneeled out the victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NORCO \u2014 The Long Beach Poly football team was more than ready for its playoff opener. The Jackrabbits…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,5479,2043,2044,610,131,133,132,137,85134,612,127],"class_list":["post-521528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-high-school-all-sports","tag-high-school-football","tag-high-school-sports","tag-inland-empire","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-norco","tag-riverside-county","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521528","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=521528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}