The St. Anthony boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 basketball teams are both off to a hot start this year, with a combined record of 14-2 after just two weeks of play.<\/p>\n
The Saints boys\u2019 basketball team (7-0) was a Division 5 also-ran a few years ago before head coach Allen Caveness took over and built it into a legitimate Division 1 program. Caveness\u2019 teams have been known for tough defense and scrappy play, but this year they\u2019re going from being the underdogs to the favorites in the Del Rey League. They\u2019ve already beaten defending league champion Bishop Montgomery this year and impressed by winning the Ryse Williams Pac Shores Tournament, last week.<\/p>\n
The Saints are led by Jadon Jones, the son of Milikan legend Derek Jones. Jadon was named the MVP of the Pac Shores, averaging 20 points per game during the tournament.<\/p>\n
The Saints girls\u2019 basketball team (7-2) was down last season, but second-year coach Ray Bennett has his squad trending up this year. St. Anthony, ranked in the first CIF-SS Division 2AA poll of the season, is led by seniors Emily Perez and Drew Sharp.<\/p>\n
Long Beach Poly Hoops Open This Week<\/strong><\/p>\n Long Beach Poly is the only school in the city with two Division 1 basketball teams, and both Jackrabbit squads open up play this week.<\/p>\n The Poly boys are in Los Angeles where they\u2019ll compete in the Westchester Tournament, opening play Tuesday night against Renaissance Academy. Fans hoping for a shorter drive to see Poly and star player Peyton Watson can catch them next week in the St. John Bosco Tournament, where St. Anthony and Compton will also compete.<\/p>\n The Poly girls are in Arizona competing in the Nike Tournament of Champions. They\u2019ll open up play Tuesday evening against Westchester.<\/p>\n Cross Country<\/strong><\/p>\n The Long Beach Poly boys\u2019 cross country team was the last fall sport standing, and the Jackrabbits ran in last weekend\u2019s CIF State Division 1 Final, finishing 11th. Senior Ronan McMahon-Staggs finished 11th with a time of 15:13, an all-time Mike or JJ record for two miles, but Ronan ran three. While the Jackrabbits team is done, Ronan\u2019s season isn\u2019t, he\u2019ll run at the Footlocker West qualifier this weekend, hoping to make the Footlocker Nationals race.<\/p>\n All-CIF Honors<\/strong><\/p>\n We mentioned in the fall that girls\u2019 volleyball is the top sport going in Long Beach right now, and the All-CIF honors released on Monday certainly agree with us. Long Beach Poly\u2019s Adonia Faumuina was All-CIF in Division 1. Lakewood\u2019s Laura Williams made the list in Division 2, Wilson\u2019s Risa Sena made it in Division 3 and St. Anthony\u2019s Isabella Bareford is honored in Division 4. A trio of Avalon Lancers cracked the list in Division 9: Yuliana Vega, Virginia Soto, and Daniella Moreno.<\/p>\n Even more exciting is that only Bareford is graduating, meaning there\u2019s a ton of talent coming back for the fall of 2020.<\/p>\n CIF Rankings<\/strong><\/p>\n The first CIF Southern Section soccer rankings are out and there\u2019s big news for Cabrillo\u2019s boys\u2019 soccer team. After winning a historic CIF State Regional championship last year, the first postseason title in school history, the Jaguars got bumped up from Division 2 to Division 1. If the first rankings are to be believed, that\u2019s no problem for the Jags\u2014they\u2019re ranked No. 3 in Division 1.<\/p>\n Game of the Week<\/strong><\/p>\n On the girls\u2019 side, there aren\u2019t any ranked Long Beach soccer teams, but there is a great three-way race for this year\u2019s Moore League championship between Millikan, Wilson and Poly. The Rams are the defending league champions for the first time since 1985 and will host the Jackrabbits Thursday, at 6 p.m., in the league opener for both teams.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 teams are a combined 14-2 this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":17111,"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":[1181],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[199],"class_list":["post-6671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-high-school-sports-column","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6671","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=6671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6671"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=6671"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=6671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}