The562’s coverage of high school soccer is sponsored by Long Beach FC.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly is sponsored by Bryson Financial.
The Long Beach Poly girls’ soccer team continued its run through the CIF Southern Section Division 3 playoffs on Tuesday, hitting the road to Culver City where they took down the host Centaurs. The Jackrabbits dominated the run of play for the first half of the game, and broke through in the 45th minute on a brilliant strike by defender and CSUN signee Alex Valente, who lifted them to a 1-0 victory.
“It was a stressful game, I’m very happy we got the W,” said Poly coach Angel Zavala. “We just couldn’t find our groove, but I was impressed with our fight. I’m super happy and excited for them.”
The win puts the Jackrabbits in the semifinals for the first time since the 2019-20 season. They’ll host Buena on either Friday or Saturday in the semis, trying to advance to next weekend’s CIF-SS championship.
Poly dominated possession and the credible scoring chances in the first half, as Aaya McLyn put several free kicks and corners into dangerous spots, and the Centaur keepers’ tendency to bobble the ball brought Poly fans gasping to their feet frequently. But for all the appealing chances, no score materialized, and Poly found themselves knotted at nil-nil at the break.
In the second half, everything changed. After Culver City nearly had a goal off of a corner kick, which bounced twice in the box before being cleared, Poly yielded another corner. Valente, however, intercepted a pass and began a hard sprint down the right sideline. She passed it off to Rylee Ignacio, shed a defender, and quickly received it back from Ignacio, still at a dead sprint.
As her coaches yelled “shoot it!” over and over, Valente surveyed her options. She had teammate Leah Salas running towards the far post, and as she ran her way into open space, she decided to put it on frame near post.
“At first I was going to cross it to Leah, but I saw that there was two defenders on her and the goalie was a little high,” she said. “So I just thought, ‘Whatever, I’ll just hit it. I’ll just hit it–just make sure it’s a little high and on the near post and it went in.’”
The goal broke the game in Poly’s direction and brought their fans to a roar as the Jackrabbits celebrated Valente’s strike on the field. Zavala’s team is filled with big cannons, and they’ve had some incredible long-range goals this year. After struggling to score early in the season, he’s encouraged his team to seek out big moments, especially when defenses are playing off of them due to Poly’s athleticism.
“She did exactly what I’ve been telling them to do, take advantage of the space they give you,” he said. “If they give it to you, take advantage.”
The Centaurs pressed up after Poly’s goal, and second-half keeper Zadie Kuykendall had one diving save to stop a hard shot. For the most part, Poly’s excellent back line of Valente, Maya Geer, and Trinity Hamilton were able to smother the Centaurs’ attack, yielding just three shots on goal all game.
“We just want to stay tough back there,” said Zavala. “I thought they played really well.”
Valente said she was pleased with how her fellow defenders played.
“We held it down, we did what we had to do,” she said. “We just try to communicate as much as possible. We knew they play a lot of through balls so we tried to be tight to the player. I’m so, so excited, we really want to win it all this year.”
It’s clear that Zavala is having a great time coaching this senior-laden Jackrabbit squad in his first year as head coach.
“We gave them the structure right from the jump in the summertime, but it’s their team,” he said. “They’ve been working really hard for this, hopefully we can keep it going.”
