<\/p>\n
You’d be hard-pressed to find a team who went from as low as Poly was last week to as high as they were on Friday, with a convincing 42-12 win over Compton that gives them the Moore League’s no. 2 seed. <\/span>Last week, Poly was struggling to find its offense against a winless Cabrillo team, and learning that, with a Compton defeat of Millikan, they were in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time in three decades. <\/span>Friday night, they’d scored at will against the Tarbabes, played a complete game on defense, and learned that with Wilson losing to Lakewood, they’d be the Moore League’s second seed, and likely get a home game in the first round of the playoffs.<\/p>\n Compton scored after a Poly fumble gave them the ball back in Poly territory\u2014a quick drive ended in a Bryant Hayes touchdown, giving Compton a 6-0 lead. <\/span>Aside from that turnover score, Compton ran a grand total of three plays on Poly’s side of the field. <\/span>Defensively, Poly seems to have found its identity, allowing 15 points in the last three weeks, and allowing just slightly over ten plays in their territory in the last two games. <\/span>The Tarbabes would score another touchdown on a Poly muffed punt return, but were completely shut down by the Poly D aside from that.<\/p>\n Linebackers like Josh Fasavalu (who had three tackles for losses and a fumble recovery) benefited enormously from stout play on the line, especially on the interior from players like Michael Teo\u2014when you get interior penetration, it’s hard to run the Wing T that Compton uses. <\/span>“I was most happy with the defensive line,” said Poly defensive coordinator Jeff Turley. <\/span>“They did a thankless job all night, taking on those blockers, and letting the linebackers look good\u2014but the ‘backers don’t make those plays without the linemen.”<\/p>\n Offensively, a player couldn’t have done much more in a half of football than Kaelin Clay (a senior who’s stepped up big the last two weeks)\u2014he returned the kickoff after Compton’s first score for a 95-yard TD, then scored a 38-yard touchdown on an untouched run after Compton’s muff touchdown. <\/span>On Poly’s next drive, he put the game away with a 48-yard touchdown catch on a beautifully thrown ball by Chris Leachman\u2014Poly took a 29-12 lead into halftime, and Clay had 212 yards of total production and three scores in 24 minutes of work. <\/span><\/p>\n “It was win or go home,” said Clay, “And we had to play to our potential. <\/span>If we can keep doing that, we can surprise some people.”<\/p>\n It was all Poly running game and lockdown defense after that\u2014Poly also got scores from Cory Westbrook (who looked fresh and healthy on his two rushes), Markes Jackson, and Michael Simmons, all on the ground. <\/span><\/p>\n “We just weren’t able to get it done,” said Compton coach Calvin Bryant, whose program will have to rebuild next season. <\/span>“But we’ll continue to be an up-and-coming team, and keep working hard.”<\/p>\n Poly will put the win in their back pocket, and look towards Sunday morning, when they’ll get the CIF-SS Pac-5 playoff brackets\u2014we’ll be reporting live at 11am when they’re released, so be sure to come back. <\/span>“They understood they had to play for four quarters,” Poly coach Raul Lara said of the total team effort, “And I’m glad they did, because here we go.” <\/span><\/p>\n Here we go indeed\u2014see you Sunday morning. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You’d be hard-pressed to find a team who went from as low as Poly was last week to as high as they were tonight, with a big win over Compton that gives them the league’s no. 2 seed.<\/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-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","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=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}