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It costs more than $50,000 a year to attend school at Windward, and it’s absolutely free to attend Long Beach Poly. Saturday night in the CIF Southern Section Division 3 semifinals, the Jackrabbits made some priceless memories, coming back from down 2-0 to defeat the host Wildcats in five sets in a reverse sweep, 21-25, 19-25, 25-11, 25-16, 15-10.
The Jackrabbits trailed 2-0 in the match, then trailed 7-3 in the fifth set before pulling off a truly remarkable comeback, one that had many coaches and players saying it was the most thrilling match they’d ever been involved in. The Jackrabbits will now face Bishop Diego in the CIF-SS Division 3 championship this Saturday at Cerritos College at 3pm.
Poly coach Gerald Aquiningoc had a hard time putting into words what his team’s performance meant to him. “I think in my whole career, this would be the match,” he said when asked where Saturday’s match ranked in terms of exciting contests. “We talked about how we were going to have adversity in this playoff run, whether it’s a small thing in the set or being down two to none. It’s a testament to them believing in what we do and believing in each other. And I’m so proud.”
The Jackrabbits stumbled in the first two sets of the match, leading 14-12 in the first set before being doomed by hitting errors, and leading 12-10 in the second set before falling to the same fate. But Poly kept grinding, confident that momentum would flip.
“Everything was going against us,” said Aquiningoc. “Rally plays, they were getting the breaks with balls dropping, they were winning the referee calls. It felt like we couldn’t do anything or catch any momentum. In our huddle we asked how are we going to change it? What can we do to regain control of the match? And it’s just calming down, getting our system going. Our passing and our serving was great tonight.”
A lot of credit goes to Poly’s back row players and best servers. Libero Sydney Mercado had 12 digs and three of Poly’s nine aces, but the aces don’t tell the full story. Poly won 22 points where Mercado was serving, double the next-highest player. She consistently kept the Wildcats out of system, serving up a 9-0 run late to close the third set, and serving up a 7-0 run that flipped the fifth set from Poly trailing 7-3 to leading 10-7, with two aces and three hitting errors as part of that run.
“After the second set it was a lot of ‘Let’s…let’s go,’” said Mercado. “We got this, reset, keep going, we’re right there. We just had it in our hands and we wanted it–we’ve been working so hard and we didn’t want to see it end tonight.”
Lauren Foster-Elisara won 11 points with her serves, putting up 15 assists, 11 digs, and two aces. Georgia Camandang won nine points on her serves, with two aces. Hannah Ballungay won seven points on her serves, and had 24 assists, 16 digs, and a pair of aces.
The turnaround from the first two sets to the rest of the match was truly remarkable, with Poly winning the third and fourth by a combined 50-27–a total that would have been even more lopsided without an 8-1 run by Windward late in the fourth.
Middle blocker Kristen Dear is one of the senior leaders on the team, and put up eight kills and two blocks. She said that Poly showed their improvement from last year to this year with the comeback.
“It shows how much we’ve grown, our camaraderie and chemistry, because last year we were in the same predicament,” she said. “We got blitzed by South and we were in a hostile environment and we didn’t come back. This year we overcame it. We just kept saying we’re right there, we didn’t do all that work for nothing.”
In the third set, Poly jumped out to a 10-2 lead thanks to a 6-0 service run from Mercado, and after a 7-0 run by Camandang that included an ace, Poly led 23-8 and the Jackrabbits fans were rocking the Windward gym.
Senior Emma Holder had eight kills in the match and was one of the five Jackrabbits with between six and nine kills in a balanced effort. She said once the momentum started rolling their way, she knew that she and her teammates would win the night.
“We were just like, ‘No,’” she said. “We knew we could beat this team. It shouldn’t have taken two sets but it did, and we’re still here. We felt the urgency.”
Poly won the third set 25-11 and led 23-8 in the fourth after Camandang’s big service run. It was a truly remarkable avalanche of momentum, and senior middle blocker Layla Moore (nine kills, four blocks) said it was as fun to play in as it looked like it was.
“We’ve been working so hard this entire season, and we just couldn’t let ourselves lose,” she said. “This game was the most we’ve ever leaned on each other and just stayed together and it was really good. You see what happened.”
Larissa Foster-Elisara had a team-high nine kills and two blocks, and came up with big points when Poly needed her to.
In the fifth, Poly opened up with a 3-0 lead that included an ace from Aleeya Salima (three kills, 12 digs) and a big block from Moore and Foster-Elisara. But Windward dug deep and went on a 7-0 run to take a 7-3 lead, bridging two Poly timeouts that left the Jackrabbits trailing 7-3, having lost all momentum, and out of timeouts.
A kill by Cedra Talaga (six kills, 13 digs) gave Poly the ball back, and Mercado proceeded to flip the match again from the end line. A Windward attack on a ball set out of system went long, then she dropped two aces to tie the match and force a Windward timeout. She got an overpass that led to a Dear kill, and then another Windward hitting error and a net violation that made it 10-7 Poly after a 7-0 run of their own. Holder put down two kills to make it 13-9, and then Dear finished it off with two big kills that set the Poly crowd and team into an absolute frenzy.
It was one of those special high school sports matches that will be remembered by everyone who was in attendance. Aquiningoc said the win represented more than just which team got to go to the CIF-SS championship; it was a representation of what Long Beach and Long Beach Poly are all about.
“The mission is to create an environment where the girls are proud to wear that jersey,” he said. “This right here would not have happened if they weren’t proud to be from Long Beach Poly, and proud to represent Long Beach Poly. They know the history and all that comes with being a Jackrabbit, and these guys are embodying it.”
