The562’s soccer coverage for the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by Beach Futbol Club.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly athletics in the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by Poly alum Jayon Brown and PlayFair Sports Management.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly athletics in the 2022-23 school year is sponsored by JuJu Smith-Schuster and the JuJu Foundation.
After two weeks of thrilling playoff victories, gasp-inducing comebacks, and “cover your eyes till it’s over” penalty kicks, the Long Beach Poly boys’ soccer team finally ran into a team that was good enough to overcome the Jackrabbit postseason magic. Poly played most of the game behind and wasn’t able to net an equalizer in a rainy championship game, losing the CIF Southern Section Division 2 crown to San Clemente in a 2-0 loss at Veterans Memorial Stadium.
The Poly coaching staff had seen that the Tritons had outscored their playoff opponents 10-1 in the playoffs thus far, but had hoped to overcome them with energy and effort.
“I think their hard work and their energy was there, we conceded the energy in the first 20 minutes of the game and that kind of dictated things,” said Poly coach Eric Leon. “It took us a little bit to react to it, so you have to give them their kudos for coming out strong.”
Both teams traded early chances and both teams had great keepers, making for a wide-open and exciting first half. The Tritons had two critical offsides calls go against them in the first half, drawing the ire of their fans.
One was a play where Poly keeper Amir Diaz Espinoza saved a ball but it deflected into the box away from him, allowing a San Clemente player to get a shot on goal, which a Poly defender on the line blocked with his hand. The head official immediately pulled out his red card and indicated a penalty kick had been awarded, before the Poly defenders were able to point to him that the assistant ref had raised his flag for an offsides violation prior to the shot.
Poly had a goal come off the board due to an offsides call as well on a nice shot by Damien Suarez.
San Clemente found paydirt in the 30th minute on a deflection in the box that fell right to the feet of Finnegan Linas, who calmly buried it in the net.
The Jackrabbits played the rest of the game from behind and had their chances in the second half, with shots on goal from Suarez and Roberto Bermudez saved by the Tritons keeper. Cholico and Suarez had a great two-man play that saw Cholico cross it to Suarez to head it in. The header was stopped by a San Clemente defender on the line who was able to kick it away.
The Tritons would add a second score in the 77th minute by Beckham Beauchemin to effectively end the game, and kick off a San Clemente celebration. For Poly, it was a bitter finish to what has been a thrilling run through the CIF-SS playoffs. Leon said that while his team made history, it would take some time before they can appreciate that fact.
“The right thing to say is just to congratulate them for the run that they made,” said Leon. “No words that I can say is going to make them feel any better about the outcome. Nevertheless, we had a great crowd, I’m sure they’re all proud of the boys. Now we just have to bounce back and hope that we can make a good run in the state championship.”
While they didn’t bring home the gold plaque that they were hoping for on Saturday, the magical postseason run for the Jackrabbits is not over. They will compete in next week’s state playoffs as the first Poly boys’ team to do so. CIF State playoff brackets will be released on Sunday afternoon, we’ll have live updates on the website.
