LONG BEACH — The Long Beach Poly girls basketball team played their best first half of the season, leading 46-11 at halftime, as the Jackrabbits cruised to a 73-48 win at home against Chaminade in the first round of the CIF-Southern Section Division 1 playoffs Thursday night.
“That first half was awesome,” Long Beach Poly coach Carl Buggs said.
Senior forward Brooklyn Taylor scored a game-high 26 points and grabbed nine rebounds as Poly improved to 20-9 overall. Sophomore guard Jordyn Washington had 11 points. Junior forward Joy Anderson had nine points and seven rebounds. Sophomore guard Bailey Prewitt added six points and a team-high 12 rebounds.
“Trying to get kids to understand, don’t measure your success by points that you score,” Buggs continued. “You know if you had a good game or not by your all-around game. Hopefully, we’re thinking like that more.”
Poly will play at Orange Lutheran in the second round on Saturday. The Lancers beat the Jackrabbits 71-60 in a nonleague game at the Troy High tournament on Dec. 9.
“Once we checked the playoff bracket, we were like oh yeah we’ve got this in the bag for sure,” Taylor said. “If we keep playing defense the way we’ve been playing and keep scoring the way we have, we’ll definitely win it all.”
Chaminade (16-11) was led by sophomore forward Payton Montgomery, who scored 21 of her team-high 25 points in the second half.
Poly was aggressive from the jump, particularly attacking the basket, as they began the game on a 12-0 run. The Jackrabbits’ defense stifled Chaminade early. Poly led 17-3 at the end of the first quarter.
“We kept the energy going throughout the entire time,” Taylor said.
Taylor’s second and one of the game put Poly up 20-3 with 7:29 left in the second quarter. The Jackrabbits began the second quarter on an 8-0 run and established a 25-3 lead with six minutes remaining in the second.
“It…
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