<\/p>\n
It was the second round of the CIF-SS Division 1 playoffs, but it looked more like a celebration, as an energetic Poly team bounced up and down the court and trounced the visiting Alhambra Moors, 92-18. <\/span>The Rabbits shot 65% and got great energy from the top to the bottom of the roster, and allowed just two field goals after the first quarter.<\/p>\n They opened the game on an 18-0 run, with their defense maddening the Moors and every shot they put up falling on offense\u2014they opened the second quarter with a 17-0 run, the third quarter with a 25-0 run, and the fourth with a 14-0 run, and would easily have reached 100 points without the running clock. <\/span>Defensively, Poly was very active, with the starters notching 17 steals, most of them resulting in fast-break points. <\/span>“We wanted to take every opportunity to get running,” said Poly coach Carl Buggs. <\/span>“We didn’t feel their guards could take us off the dribble, so we could overplay the pass, be more aggressive.” <\/span>Buggs was concerned with the tempo because of the first-round loss Alhambra dealt him in his first year coaching at Poly. <\/span>He said after Poly’s first round game that the Moors “lulled us to sleep” in that game, so a fast, uptempo gameplan was crucial for Saturday. And it couldn’t have been much faster\u2014Poly seemed to be in transition every play, and Alhambra couldn’t pass the ball, even on the perimeter. <\/span>The entire team seemed energetic and motivated, with 13 of 14 players suited up scoring, and even the reserves shooting near 70%. <\/span>The starters were happy to see the bench players scoring, Buggs was good-humored with the referee when he whistled a foul on Poly instead of an Alhambra travel, and late in the game, when a pass inside went awry, the coach just smiled at the player who made the mistake. And with that, you can expect to see a more serious face to the team as things get harder, and harder from here on out\u2014they’re traveling to face Colony in the quarterfinals on Wednesday, and you can be pretty sure that game won’t end with a running clock. <\/span>“Yeah,” said Buggs, “all the fun games are over.” Leaders for Poly were Ariya Crook-Williams, who had 15 points and five steals, Brittany Wilson, who had 12 points (and wore number 12 in honor of her injured sister), Tajanae Winston, who was very good in a starting role, putting up 10 points on 4-4 shooting, and Sheila Boykin, who had 10 points, 7 boards, five steals, five assists, and two blocks. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You won’t often get a chance to see a team play as well, and as dominantly, in the second round of the CIF playoffs as Poly played against Alhambra on Saturday night.<\/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-2035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035","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=2035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2035\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2035"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}