{"id":61036,"date":"2025-11-19T23:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T23:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61036\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T23:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T23:05:08","slug":"long-beach-poly-girls-soccer-preview-the562-org","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/61036\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Poly Girls\u2019 Soccer Preview \u2013 The562.org"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

The562\u2019s high school soccer coverage for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Long Beach Poly soccer alum\u00a0Kennedy Justin.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Long Beach Poly girls\u2019 soccer team is coming off a season to remember\u2013they won the Moore League championship, made it to the CIF Southern Section championship, and secured a historic state berth as well. The engine driving that season was a strong senior class that graduated players to multiple NCAA rosters, and included the Moore League Defensive Player of the Year, Midfielder of the Year, Goalkeeper of the Year, five first-team All-Moore League honorees and two second-team all-league reps.<\/p>\n

In other words: Poly lost a lot, and head coach Angel Zavala will have to do some re-arranging to prepare for the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now I need to see everybody show up\u2013practice, games, ready to go, ready to fight for a spot and for a win,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery spot is open, we\u2019ve got a ton of new players and they\u2019re entering a whole new beast and they have to be ready for it. At the end of the day whoever shows up is going to win the game. It\u2019s exciting but it\u2019s definitely going to be a big test for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team is short on seniors, especially after the heartbreaking ACL injury suffered by Trinity Hamilton, expected to be one of the top players in the league this year. Hamilton has remained in a leadership role for the team and will still serve as a captain.<\/p>\n

The team will rely on its other seniors including Joanna Rodriguez, Lillie Hudak, Zadie Kuykendall, and Rosa Mallach.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore than half our team is sophomores, and we\u2019re going to be comfortable building around them where we need to,\u201d said Zavala. \u201cThe way it\u2019s always been at Long Beach Poly is that whoever shows up and is the best is going to be there. It doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a sophomore, if you\u2019re showing up and showing out and our captains are seeing it too, then that\u2019s what we\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"2025<\/a>Lily Montecinos will be one of the young talented Jackrabbits hoping to push Poly back to the top this year<\/p>\n

Leading the way for that talented sophomore class is Lily Montecinos, who will likely be in the center midfield spot for the Jackrabbits. Montecinos was a valuable contributor on varsity last year as a freshman, and scored one of Poly\u2019s two goals alongside Rodriguez in an impressive 2-0 scrimmage win last night over CIF-SS Division 1 Finalist Troy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to work on connecting and building more cohesion with all of us since we\u2019re so new together, but we have the talent to do it if we all work together,\u201d said Montecinos.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez will be in the middle with Montecinos, with both able to score as well as defend. Keepers Kuykendall and Elyse Stegall are battling for the starting spot in goal, a situation that Zavala said is common across the roster, with lots of spots up for grabs. Hudak will likely anchor the defense as the team\u2019s center back, with Naima Galbreath, Rylee Zavala, Emma Espinoza, and Kamelah Artiaga all in the mix for back row or midfield spots.<\/p>\n

Up top, the best options include Wendy Luis and Callista Berquist.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m excited for the year,\u201d said Montecinos. \u201cWe\u2019re going to build on what we did last year with a lot of new people and younger players. There\u2019s a lot of new players but also a lot of talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zavala\u2019s excitement about his team\u2019s potential is clear from the way he scheduled. In addition to the scrimmage against Division 1 finalist Troy last night (a 2-0 win for Poly), the Jackrabbits will also face JSerra, Los Alamitos, and Laguna Beach in their nonleague before opening up the always-tough Moore League schedule, with every other team hungry to knock the Jackrabbits off the top spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe come in as defending champions and we worked very hard for that,\u201d said Zavala. \u201cIt\u2019s just one of those things now\u2013every game is a battle and you have to fight until that final whistle, don\u2019t let up on the gas. We have to stay focused, hungry, and motivated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The562\u2019s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Former Jackrabbits Wendell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-61036","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\/61036","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=61036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}