<\/p>\n
Don’t call it a dynasty: call it habit. <\/span>For the second straight year and an historic tenth time overall, the Long Beach Poly girls’ track program has won the CIF California State Championship, in a performance as dominant as it was unsurprising, taking the title with 45 total points; their closest competitor, Serra, had just 28 points. <\/span>By comparison, no boys’ program managed to accrue more than twenty points, as a four-way tie ensued at that mark. All of Poly’s title wins have come in the last 18 years, and the tenth one served to lap the competition–the next-highest total for state titles is five.<\/p>\n The win came despite the Trackrabbits losing two of the events they were expected to win. <\/span>The sensational sophomore Akawkaw Ndipagbor lost the 400-meter dash, an event in which she finds herself among the nation’s elite; on Saturday, she fell to Turquoise Thompson of Serra by an excruciating two-hundredths of a second, running the still-amazing time of 53.12. <\/span>Serra also edged Poly in the 4X400, the day’s final run, by almost three seconds, posting a 3:42.91 to Poly’s 3:45.73. <\/span>Serra’s time was a full seven seconds faster than their qualifier on Friday.<\/p>\n In fact, Poly only won one event all day, the 4X100 relay, as the three-sophomore team of Carisma Lyday, Melia Cox, Destiny Gammage and Ndipagbor edged Serra 45.88 to 45.96. <\/span>Other than that, it was just a solid team performance, with Poly competitors racking up mid-level points in a number of events including the 800 meter (Neausha Logan took fourth), the 100-meter hurdles (Cox took sixth), the high jump (Tara Richmond took second with 5’8” and Alexus Dalton took seventh), and the triple jump (Cox took third and Richmond took seventh).<\/p>\n As impressive as that team performance seems, consider this: after their historic championship, the Poly girls’ team will be graduating exactly one athlete (Gammage), and will be keeping much of their top talent for another two seasons. <\/span>Ndipagbor, Dynasty Gammage, Cox, Lyday, and Dalton are all sophomores. <\/span>Their tenth state championship is a momentous accomplishment—but don’t be surprised if it happens against next year.<\/p>\n Other Moore League results<\/b><\/p>\n The Poly boys’ team of Javon May, Kire Jibril, Cameron White, and Kaelin Clay took second in the 4X100, losing to Serra by .08 seconds. <\/span><\/p>\n Millikan<\/b><\/p>\n It was a tough day for the Rams, as Millikan’s competitors finished below their qualifying place in every event. <\/span>In the 800-meter, junior Paisley Pettway took third with a time of 2:08.57 (she qualified second); Jonathan Sander had qualified second in the 300-meter hurdles but finished last with a time of 40.51, almost three seconds slower than his qualifying time. <\/span>The Rams had qualified first in the boys’ 4X400 relay, but slipped into second, running a 3:14.64, nine-hundredths of a second behind O. Lu.<\/p>\n Wilson<\/b><\/p>\n Nyjah Cousar, senior, qualified third in the 300-meter hurdles, and ran a little better, finishing second with a time of 41.70. <\/span>The Bruins took eighth in the girls’ 4X100 relay with Alycia Presley, Cousar, Fabrina Espinoza, and Christina Smith running in the cardinal and gold. <\/span>Espinoza, a junior, also took seventh in the long jump.<\/p>\n Pictures coming Sunday night!<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The sophomore-laden Trackrabbits have done it again, with their tenth state title, and second in a row.<\/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-3715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715","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=3715"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3715\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3715"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=3715"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=3715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}