Sometimes it’s difficult to get all of the Long Beach schools into our annual Top 10 moments countdown of the best high school sports we saw over the last 12 months, but this athletic year was full of top performances from all over the city.
NUMBER TEN
As Long Beach Poly boys’ athletic director Rob Shock put it during the Jackrabbits’ scholarship signing ceremony for their seniors, “Any time a kid signs a scholarship for college we know that’s life-changing–we never take that for granted. But with everything these kids went through, it’s hard not to be a little more emotional about it.”
We felt the same as we went from school to school recognizing the athletes who are moving on to play college sports. Despite the obstacles in front of the class of 2022–whose last “regular” school year pre-COVID was their freshman year–this was the biggest class of scholarship signees we’ve covered.
At Long Beach Poly, the class has swelled to 44 senior athletes signing four-year scholarships, Wilson and Millikan both had 20, and Lakewood and St. Anthony had 10. In all, 100+ Long Beach athletes are getting scholarship money to play college sports, representing over $15,000,000 in free tuition to local athletes in this year’s class.
NUMBER TEN
NUMBER NINE
NUMBER EIGHT
NUMBER SEVEN
NUMBER SIX
NUMBER FIVE
NUMBER FOUR
NUMBER THREE
NUMBER TWO
NUMBER ONE
