Last year was the most successful season in Long Beach girls’ water polo history, with both Wilson and Long Beach Poly making it to CIF Southern Section championship games. With the release of this year’s brackets on Saturday, it’s obvious that it will be tough for the city to repeat last year’s feat in 2019.
Click here for the complete CIF-SS Water Polo brackets
Moore League champion Wilson was moved up from Division 3 (which they won last year) to Division 2, where they will start on the road at La Canada on Wednesday at 5 p.m. There are 16 teams in the Division 2 bracket and more than half of them were league champions, forcing the Bruins to start the playoffs on the road, which is unusual for a league champion.
Things won’t get easier for Wilson if the Bruins can win on Wednesday, either. If they can pull a minor upset of La Canada they’ll end up on the road against top-seeded Santa Margarita on Saturday, Feb. 9.
Poly was the Moore League’s second seed and will also open with a tough draw, hitting the road to play Esperanza on Tuesday at 5 p.m. in the Wild Card round of the Division 3 bracket. A win would put Poly on the road against Segerstrom in the first round on Wednesday.
Millikan, the third-place team from the Moore League, will open up in the first round of the Division 3 bracket on Tuesday with a road game against Downey at 5 p.m.
