LBPOST.com: Football: Poly, Lakewood Take On Southland�s Best In Dana Hills Air Strike

Sunday, March 14, 2010 | Home

Football: Poly, Lakewood Take On Southland�s Best In Dana Hills Air Strike

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Story and photos by Matt Guardabascio.

The first �real� game might be almost three months away, but two local Moore League football teams faced their first competition on Saturday, as Poly and Lakewood entered the Dana Hills Air Strike Passing League, along with other SoCal powerhouses Los Al, Oaks Christian, Mater Dei, Tesoro, St. Bonaventure, and Edison.� For Lakewood, the goal was to continue to refine the chemistry between returning starting QB Jesse Scroggins (rated by ESPN as one of the best HS QBs in the nation) and his receiving corps; for Poly, the goal was to help find out who the heck will be wearing the green and gold, following the graduation of almost every single starter.

For Lakewood, they started the day off with a win over Santa Margarita, before falling to St. Bonny to put them in the loser�s bracket, where they defeated San Clemente and Narbonne, before being bumped from competition in a rematch loss to St. Bonny that kept them from reaching the quarterfinals.

The Jackrabbits, with a lot of sophomores, looked for leadership and struggled to find it early, losing their first two games to Los Al and Trabuco.� Head coach Raul Lara was fired up after the Trabuco loss, saying, �We need to take the diapers off, grow up, and make plays.� If everybody makes their plays, we win the game.�� The �Rabbits perked their ears up and rebounded with two straight wins.

The first, against Mater Dei, proved that no matter how young the team, the sight of Monarch Red will always get Poly fired up.� Cameron Jackson returned the opening Mater Dei pass for a touchdown, perhaps showing that Poly will be defensively-driven once more this season.� Sophomore quarterback Derek Stewart looked good in the Mater Dei win, and a victory over Dana Hills before Oaks Christian knocked them out, also one game away from the quarterfinals.

After the final game, Lara said, �We�re starting to find out who to go to,� which is the most a coach of a young team could hope to gain from a passing league game.� �We�ve got young quarterbacks, so whoever�s hot gets the ball.� Stewart was hot today.�

As you�re counting down the days till September, when Poly will face Bonny, and Jordan will face Oaks Christian, enjoy these pics�we were hoping Lakewood would make it out of the San Clemente bracket and over to Dana Hills so we could get some shots of them too, but hey�the Summer is young!��

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Written by LB Sports News
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Related Stories: poly, lakewood, moore league, football, poly football

Comments

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Lupe
I saw Poly at the tourney......they will not repeat as Pac-5 champs and will finally lose a Moore League game this year. Lots of young talent......

Premature
Lupe, ain't it a little TOO early to be making ANY predictions for this upcoming season? Tell you one thing. If I were a Moore League team, I would want to EARN a WIN against Long Beach Poly, and not have it handed to us because they're going through a REBUILDING YEAR!!! IF YOU WANT TO BE THE BEST, YOU HAVE TO BEAT THE BEST...

poly fan
I agree with the person who responded to Lupe's comments. That's what everybody was thinking about Poly last year and they we're wrong! Who won CIF! "POLY." Poly is young, but still very talented! Although, Poly is young, they still have more overall talent than Lakewood! I hope Lakewood don't think they can win a championship with just two players! Poly has more of a chance than Lakewood.
Why do everyone always hate on Poly? Don't be surprised if Poly come back with another championship victory. Also, if this is a down year for Poly, you can best believe they will be back even stronger the following year, again young, but some talented kids! Let's just hope Lakewood can keep all of their guys academically eligible!

JR Salazar
I'm just waiting to see if LB Poly will avoid getting a pratfall a la Grant High this year.

dont4getJtown
Don't count Jordan out of all this. I think they got the best all around QB there in John Timu. He can do pretty much everything and their defense is going to be vicious with Bobo returning at LB. I'm just keeping it real, and don't forget Compton. They probably have the best RB in McConico. Wilson's got a great RB returning too. Too many strong teams in the Moore League this year. Somebody's going to break the streak. You guy's are already picking Poly and Lakewood or vice versa to take first and second. Poly plays Jordan first and then Lakewood the next week, and after Lakewood plays Poly, they got Jordan. So who knows how this outcome is going to look like. It's going to be one of the Moore League's best years.

Lupe
I agree......Lots of talent in the Moore league. Poly wont run away with it like they have in the past.

Lupe
"poly fan" it's easier to keep guys eligible through the PAL program at Poly.....to bad all LB schools dont have that program to keep football players on track

Poly Dad
One thing to consider when judging this young Poly team is that they practiced against the CIF Champions last year and to beat the best you need to play the best and they have done that on the practice field.

Premature
Lupe, based on your expertise and knowledge about the PAAL Campus, YOU should approach the LBUSD Board and suggest all local high schools implement a similar program providing ALL athletes with academic support. Better yet, have a separate Long Beach area high school just for athletes, and do away with sports at the rest of the schools...

POLY FAN
"LUPE" What shcool are you with? First of all, remember these are all kids! So you don't criticize without "TACT" You act like it's a personal thing or that you would just love to see poly loose!Why is that? Really I kdon't care who wins "Remember Kids." Secondly, everyone said the same thing last year and who was on top? I have a son on the team, "He has a Ring, a 10th grader. And if they don't win another in the next two years he came out with one! So say Lakewoood do win this year, what will they do in the following years to come? You can best believe they may win a few, but never will they be "POLY" and that's something not you and no one else can take from LONG BEACH! But you know what I like everybody looking at us like the underdogs because we been on top for so long! We need some good competition around here! However, it don't look like the competition will be around long, maybe what? "One year" and back to the same old thing! POLY 1

poly fan
Why do everybody always got to hate on Poly! Maybe, because they are the best, just like the Lakers. Everybody want to have on them too. Give credit, where credit is due! They have been on top for years! You can't win them all, so Even if they do get beaten this this year, I can guarantee you this, the winner and no other Moore League team will ever accomplish all of what poly has in the past! If you don't agree or believe it, you are just fooling yourself!

dont4getJtown
What you guys are forgetting is that in the early 90's they kinda opened up the boundaries and let kids from other areas come in and enroll. Which took away from the other schools. They kept the ones they wanted and denied the ones they didn't. That's one of the reason's why Poly is always on top and now you have kids picking where they want to go hoping that their talent is good enough to get them to play there. It doesn't start with the kid, it's the parents that think that sending them to Poly or Lakewood will make them better. Nooooo! If your kid is good, it doesn't matter if he goes to Poly or Lakewood. He'll stand out at any school that he attends. I played and graduated from Poly and i'm proud of that. I played with kids that all lived in the area and we had a team of about 45. We didn't need kids from other districts or other schools to come in and make us better, we believed in the coaches and the system that was put there. Now you have these teams that load up with close to 100 players. You only need 11 on both sides of the ball people. What happens to the other kids? They sit the sidelines and become cheerleaders in football gear and try to see themselves on TV. As a parent, you would enjoy the win. But you would be a prouder parent knowing that your son contributed in that win. I wouldn't want a ring if I was sitting on the sidelines and didn't get in on one play, it just wouldn't be right. If the boundaries were still up, Poly wouldn't get their wins so easily, they would earn it like the Poly of old. And it's not only Poly, it's all the schools that let this happen too. I'm not hating, I just thought we were talking about whats good for the kids, not the parents!

poly fan
Now there are alot of kid that sit on hte sidelines at other schools too. Sometimes you just have to wait your turn. Like you said, you only need 11 player on the field at any given time. However, there are alot of kids that live in Poly district, but go to Lakewood, wilson, jordan and other schools. If all kids that lived in Poly district had to go to Poly, there wouldn't be any competition at the other schools because everybody would be at Poly. Half the kids on Lakewood, live in Poly district anyway, but because of the talent and the number of kids, they go else where to be the "STAR" or to get playing time. And you can't do nothing but agree!

ace
It is not true that half the kids that go to Lakewood High are from the Poly district area.
Stop kids from picking the school they want to go to and even out the flow of talent - that would be fair to everyone, right? Problem is that some schools have more students living in their area. One of the best Poly players lives very near Lakewood. Gets complicated doesn't it.

poly fan
like you said, how many poly players live in lakewood area 1. I know alot of the kids on the lakewood football team personally, that live in poly area. however, people give poly credit, where credit is do and let the kids enjoy their high school football experience. It's the parents not the kids who have the problem.

poly fan
REMEMBER POLY IS RE-LOADING, NOT RE-BUILDING!

LB NATIVE
i agree with alot of the issues that has been discussed with kids picking which school they want to attend....now days high school football is adapting the college methods and recruiting kids from other districts....they are going as far as even housing the kids just so that they are able to attend school. rudy lara has been so sucessful for poly because of this....i am a jordan high graduate, and i do believe that if kids that live in the jordan area stayed at jordan, we would had better seasons sooner....however, u cant blame the kids for wanting to attend a school like poly because you will definitely get looks from recruiters.