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Long Beach Poly’s girls’ volleyball team had a dream season. After starting off 2-10, the Jackrabbits grew as a team and as individuals, showing tremendous fight and grit in an undefeated Moore League championship campaign, and in winning the CIF Southern Section Division 3 championship—one set away from losing in the semifinals and finals.
That dream came to an end a long way from home on Thursday night, as Poly fell in the CIF State Division II SoCal regional quarterfinals, dropping a five-setter to Bakersfield Centennial 25-21, 19-25, 25-19, 20-25, 15-11.
“I’m sad that we lost, but that was one of the best matches I’ve seen us play,” said Poly coach Gerald Aquiningoc. “We were gritty. We were resilient. We were any word you want to say. I thought we played amazing tonight.”
Poly fell behind 1-0 then came back and tied it up, then fell behind 2-1 and came back to force a fifth set. Ultimately, Centennial handled Poly’s service pressure much better than any team they’ve faced in the playoffs, and also relied on a very skilled lefty outside hitter in junior Ila Rose. Her pin-side attack kept the ball away from Poly’s dominant middle blockers Kristen Dear and Layla Moore, and also resulted in 23 kills, the kind of big stat line that the Jackrabbits had avoided yielding over the previous month and 10 days, which saw them win 11 matches in a row.
Casting a pall over what was an otherwise excellent match between two highly-skilled teams was uneven officiating, which at times left both coaches and fan bases frustrated.
In the first set, a few obvious touches in both directions weren’t called which led to lengthy stoppages and discussions. Poly pulled away in the second set late thanks to an extended service run by Georgia Camandang, whose 4-0 run separated things after a narrow 19-18 Poly lead.
Those lengthy runs have been the hallmark of Poly’s playoff run, and weren’t prevalent on Thursday evening. Tensions with the officials boiled over in the third set, when Aquiningoc was awarded a red card mid-point for protesting a missed call on the Centennial setter jumping to block on overpass while she was in the back row.
The player realized her error and stopped playing after she’d jumped and contacted the ball, but at that point Aquiningoc was shown a red and a Centennial run was continued.
“It’s a call that any referee would have seen, the setter from the back row blocking,” said Aquingingoc. “They just didn’t see it. There were two really good teams and I don’t want to take anything away from (Centennial). They were great. But (the officiating) was bad, man. The worst-officiated game I’ve ever been a part of.”
Later in the match, a Poly attack went wide of the antenna causing the Centennial team to stop playing, in anticipation of a call being made, which it wasn’t.
With Aquiningoc sitting, Poly rallied behind its team leadership, taking the fourth set with long service runs by Aleeya Salima and Hannah Ballungay. The Jackrabbits passed well and hit a high percentage, with Cedra Talaga, Moore, and Dear all getting big kills along with sophomore Taimane Poe and freshman Avery Milburn.
But Rose was too much in the fifth set, jumping Centennial out to a 5-4 lead with four kills. Poly kept fighting to the end, but Centennial got the plays they needed along with six kills from Rose in the fifth set.
“At the point when I was sitting and couldn’t talk, they played amazing,” said Aquiningoc. “We talked all year about it. Good teams might have good coaches, but great teams have great leadership. And we had a team full of leaders tonight. They’re amazing student-athletes, these powerful young women, and I’m just so, so proud of them.”
Long Beach Poly (30-13) sees their season come to an end while Centennial (28-10) will host Windward on Saturday in the SoCal Regional semifinals.
