The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly is sponsored by Bryson Financial.
Tuesday’s victory for Long Beach Poly at Millikan was four years in the making. A veteran group of Jackrabbits that’s been together since freshman year took a big step towards a possible Moore League championship, taking down their reigning champs with a decisive 10-4 victory to remain unbeaten in league play this season.
“I couldn’t be happier,” said Poly head coach John Gabriel after the win. “I’ve been telling our guys, we’ve got a lot of soccer boys, so we missed them through the preseason, and we had kind of a slower start, but this is kind of how we drew it up. Slower start, build our chemistry, and then by the time the big games come, be ready to go. I couldn’t be more proud of the boys. They really, really stepped up tonight.”
Mason Peterson scored a hat trick for the Jackrabbits, who had several players play key roles in the win. Nathan Friedman scored twice, Lincoln King added two goals and two assists, and Rhys Lundy, Riley Melnick, and Noel Gutierrez each added a goal for Poly.
“It means a ton to me. All these guys have been working since freshman year for this,” Peterson said. “We’ve gotten beat by them like six or seven times by now, so it means so much to win, and not only win, just like, dominate them, to be honest. It means a lot for all of us, not just me.”
Things couldn’t have started much better for the home team as Millikan won the opening face-off and went down for a goal in the first 25 seconds of the game. Jude Moore delivered the assist to Jason James, who gave the Rams an almost immediate 1-0 lead.
After Friedman was able to tie the score with his first tally of the night, Millikan took the lead back in the last two minutes of the opening quarter thanks to Cameron Whitcomb’s goal. The Rams dominated the time of possession in the first, limiting Poly’s looks on goal, but that changed drastically in the second quarter.
Poly grabbed control of the game and outscored Millikan 5-0 in the second, taking a 6-2 lead into halftime. The Jackrabbits had much more possession, and moved the ball with purpose whether on the counterattack or running their offense. Peterson scored consecutive goals in that second quarter, helping get Poly into the lead for good.
“We were pushing transition a lot better,” Peterson said of what went right in the second. “A lot of our guys were a little nervous the first quarter, like shaking the jitters out, and by the second quarter, we were just ready to fight. We were winning a lot more face-offs in the second quarter. So we just got the ball on offense, and we would slow it down and not rush, give our defense time to take a break and let the ball move.”
The Jackrabbit lead grew to 8-2 after the third period, with the visitors scoring seven consecutive goals to put things out of reach.
Millikan was able to make some noise in the fourth when Moore scored consecutive goals for the Rams, but it proved to be too little too late. His nifty goal off a spin move early in the fourth quarter broke a nearly 27-minute scoring drought for the Rams, who were unable to score at all in quarters two and three.
Poly’s goalie Zeth Gonzalez was terrific with 10 saves, and Poly’s defense was buoyed by the return of Deon Hymes after his wrist injury.
“Zeth has just been a force. Since freshman year, he’s been our anchor back there, and he’s just been locked in this year,” Gabriel said. “In my eyes, by far the best goalie in the Moore League. And having Deon back was a big boost for our defense. I think the other guys stepped up when they saw his level of play, and from top to bottom, our close D to goalie just held it down.”
It was a tough loss for Millikan, with the Rams dealing with a major injury of their own. Goalie Hudson Reeves was unavailable after suffering an injury over the weekend, leaving the Rams with an inexperienced netminder who’d never played the position before.
Millikan head coach Jared Weckerly acknowledged the challenge, but is focused on getting his team back on track for the rest of the season after suffering league losses to Wilson and now Poly.
“The back half of the season’s still there,” Weckerly said. “They’ve got to beat us again, Wilson’s got to beat us again, so the season’s not over. We’ve just got to bounce back from this, and we’ve gotta figure it out on offense. Against teams that aren’t Wilson and Poly, we’re scoring 25 goals a game. So we can do it, we’ve just gotta figure it out against these teams.”
Both teams will be back in action on Thursday, with Poly visiting Lakewood at 3:45 p.m. and Millikan taking on Compton at 4:30 p.m. at Wilson High.
