![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/ART_5680-1210x642.jpg\")
<\/p>\nLet\u2019s NOT talk about football for a moment.<\/p>\n
Football is fine, of course, but by far the best fall high school sport in Long Beach this year is girls\u2019 volleyball, where a grand total of five local teams make appearances in the CIF Southern Section rankings.<\/p>\n
The best two teams in town, Long Beach Poly and Lakewood, will play at Poly this Thursday at 4 p.m. with the Moore League championship on the line. The Jackrabbits and Lancers are both top 20 in Southern California and the battle this week should be epic.<\/p>\n
The best sporting event this week gets even better as we remind you that girls\u2019 volleyball matches don\u2019t charge admission during the regular season, so you can see these two teams playing for a title for absolutely free.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The playoffs start next week for volleyball and we\u2019re expecting a lot of teams to make noise regardless of how the league title shakes out. Poly and Lakewood are both ranked in the top division, while Wilson is No. 4 and Millikan is No. 6 in Division 3. St. Anthony and Avalon are also ranked and expected to make deep playoff runs.<\/p>\n
Game of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n Poly vs. Lakewood girls\u2019 volleyball at Poly (1600 Atlantic Ave), Thursday, 4 p.m.<\/p>\n Football Dominance<\/strong><\/p>\n Part of the reason we wanted to wait a few minutes to talk about football is that the season has largely moved into the \u201cwe already know what\u2019s going to happen, we\u2019re just waiting for the final score\u201d portion of the proceedings.<\/p>\n Long Beach Poly celebrated its 112th Homecoming by easily beating Cabrillo\u2014not much of a surprise, but the 68-0 score and the fact that they held the Jaguars to minus-27 yards of offense was certainly eyebrow-raising.<\/p>\n Wilson had almost as easy of a time with Jordan as well, winning 46-12. The Jackrabbits and Bruins certainly look like the top two teams with three weeks left in the regular season, we\u2019ll know for sure after Wilson faces Lakewood, Friday.<\/p>\n Wild Game at Millikan<\/strong><\/p>\n There was one exciting game on Friday, with Compton beating Millikan 48-42 by virtue of having the last possession of the game. Compton rushed for more than 500 yards and seven touchdowns in the game, and all but eliminated Millikan from playoff contention in doing so. It was a tough result for the Rams, who have a talented roster but have underperformed this season.<\/p>\n Saints Are Marching<\/strong><\/p>\n The rising team on the gridiron in 2019 might be St. Anthony. After a tough season, last year, with a young roster, the Saints missed the playoffs. This season, they\u2019ve started 2-0 in Del Rey League play and are in contention for not only a playoff spot but for the league championship, which they haven\u2019t won since their historic CIF-SS championship season of 2016.<\/p>\n Oh, Hill Yeah<\/strong><\/p>\n The second of three Moore League cross country meets is today (Tuesday, Oct. 15) at Signal Hill\u2019s Discovery Well Park (2200 Temple Ave). The first league meet at El Dorado saw Poly\u2019s boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 teams win, each by a single point.<\/p>\n El Dorado is a flat course, though, and Signal Hill is… well, a hill. A fairly steep one, at that, with a quick elevation gain and drop over its three-mile course. The incline and decline make it a less predictable race, and a locally-famous proving ground as well.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a particularly easy race to cover, by the way, unless you\u2019re the kind of sportswriter who\u2019s OK with watching the runners leave and then waiting 15 minutes for them to come back. Because of our commitment to highlight videos, this is actually a race that inspired Mike to start running and get in shape so that he wouldn\u2019t keep vomiting in front of teenagers while trying to film their race.<\/p>\n We always take a moment to appreciate the Signal Hill race, because the residents of the affluent community that abuts it are always trying to make sure that each time the meet is held is the last<\/em> time it\u2019s held. NIMBYism doesn\u2019t just apply only to airport expansion and homeless shelters, it turns out people don\u2019t want cross country meets in their backyard, either.<\/p>\n Hopefully the experience of hundreds of student-athletes and years of history continue to take a higher priority than the whims of a few property owners, but since that isn\u2019t always (ever?) the way things work out in the long run, we\u2019ll be sure to enjoy the view for an extra second or two this year. And if we do end up vomiting, we\u2019ll make it count.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By far the best fall high school sport in Long Beach this year is girls\u2019 volleyball; five local teams make appearances in the CIF Southern Section rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":17075,"comment_status":"closed","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":[727],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[199],"class_list":["post-6349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-high-school-sports-notebook","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349","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\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/ART_7195-2-1210x642.jpg\")
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