<\/p>\n
The last time Poly won a Moore League title in boys’ volleyball, it was 2001\u2014after the first set against Wilson on Thursday, it seemed like they might have to settle for a co-title this year. <\/span>But the Rabbits rallied on their home court, and won in four sets, 12-25, 25-22, 25-18, 25-22.<\/p>\n The win puts Poly at 8-0 in league, while Wilson is in second at 6-2, with two matches left (Poly faces Jordan and Millikan, while the Bruins take on Cabrillo and Lakewood). <\/span>“It means a lot,” said Poly’s John La Rusch. <\/span>“It’s great to finally beat them for a title.” In the first set, the Rabbits’ inexperience in playing with such high stakes was obvious. <\/span>“It was nerves,” admitted La Rusch, whose team gave up 12 points on hitting, serving, and rotation errors. <\/span>Poly coach Vuthy Cheav says his team didn’t panic, and, though they were down 15-9 in the second set, didn’t lose sight of their goal. “We knew we just had to come with that same mentality we had in every other match,” he said. <\/span>“Once we came back in the second we knew it would be okay.” <\/span>Patrick Noble and Johnny Em, largely unsung role players, stepped up big in the second set, and through the match (Noble finished with 10 kills). <\/span>The Rabbits also switched Brenden Togioka back from setter to libero, where he started the year, and plugged Garrett Covey back in at setter, causing an immediate shift in their passing, and their defense. A 7-3 run brought Poly back into it in the second, but a service error and a wide swing gave Wilson a 20-16 lead. <\/span>Then Poly went to their big guns, getting two kills from Jolon Clark, and a kill and a block from La Rusch, as the hearty crowd got into things and Wilson started making errors. <\/span>The Rabbits closed on a 9-2 run. <\/span>“We just made too many mistakes,” Wilson coach Susan Pescar said of the second frame. A tight third set was taken over by Clark and La Rusch as well\u2014from when it was 18-15, the duo earned all but one of their team’s points. <\/span>Wilson fought hard in the fourth, but committed eight errors, to Poly’s four, as Noble and Em found their way through the Wilson block. <\/span>La Rusch finished with a match-leading 15 kills, Clark had 12 kills and 4 blocks, and Togioka had 15 digs. <\/span>For Wilson, Brandon Fuimaono played his usual ferocious style, finishing with 14 kills and 7 digs, and Cory Leckie had 32 assists, 2 blocks, and a kill; Jake MacRae had 7 kills, and Adam Murray provided a surprising spark for his team with 11. “We played some great volleyball,” said Pescar. <\/span>“I just wish we could have gone to five.” Cheav and his team were all smiles after the match, as the spirited crowd cheered on the title. <\/span>Cheav said he was proud of his team for achieving a goal they’d worked long hours for. <\/span>“The kids wanted it bad,” he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite being walloped in the first frame, the Rabbits defended home court and have all but locked up their first league title in almost a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-1339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=1339"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}