<\/p>\n
It was a heck of a way to start a title defense, as Poly’s girls’ basketball team took their first step towards another CIF title and a fifth straight state title Thursday night, beating Aliso Niguel 72-23. <\/span>Poly’s defense was stifling and their offensive gameplan sound, as they pounded the ball inside effectively. <\/span>About the only time they were stopped was after an Aliso three-point attempt went left, and got stuck between the glass and the rim, causing a brief delay (or a much-needed breather, for the visitors).<\/p>\n Aliso Niguel is a hot-shooting team, having launched 600 three-point attempts this season. <\/span>Poly didn’t give them any space\u2014not many shooters had a quick release\u2014and they shot very poorly, hitting just seven field goals in the game (all of them from behind the arc). <\/span>Poly was up 4-3, before going on a 19-0 run to close the first quarter, eventually leading 26-3, 37-5, and then 45-8 at halftime, when most of the starters came out of the game for good.<\/p>\n Leaders for the Rabbits were Ariya Crook-Williams, with 11 points, and Destiny King, with 8. <\/span>Tamryn Tanimoto was the high scorer for Aliso, with 6.<\/p>\n It wasn’t a bye, but Poly did take advantage of the opportunity to help rest some banged-up players, as TaNitra Byrd and Ashley Wilson both sat out the game, and Thaddesia Southall got plenty of rest as well. <\/span>Poly coach Carl Buggs said after the game there isn’t a set timetable for either player’s return, but that they could be available next week.<\/p>\n “We didn’t let them get threes early, which was the key,” he said. <\/span>“If they get a few early that can give them a big boost.”<\/p>\n Poly will play Alhambra in the second round on Saturday; home court will be decided by a coin flip Friday morning.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was a convincing start to a title defense, as Poly took advantage of their first-round contest to rest injured players, and get a big win to kick off the CIF playoffs.<\/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-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","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=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}