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There were no exceptions to Long Beach Poly’s “win or go home” mindset on Thursday night in the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs, even when they found themselves down two sets to visiting Trabuco Hills. The Jackrabbits refused to flinch with their season on the line, leaning on senior captain Lucky Iosua who poured on 31 kills as Poly came back to reverse sweep the Mustangs, 15-25, 19-25, 25-22, 25-17, 15-12.
“It feels good [to be relied on in those moments],” said Iosua. “The team needed me to step up so I just came in and worked my best and did whatever I could do.”
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“Lucky is huge, he’s our senior leader and our captain and he definitely pulled through for us tonight,” added Poly coach Sid Davidson. “We’ve been battle tested, man. Today was that same quote from Thursday night, ‘win or go home.’ They didn’t want the season to end and that’s why they performed.”
Height prevailed as an early issue for the Jackrabbits as Trabuco Hill’s Drew Johnson and Hayden Grange came on strong to open up the game. The pair combined for 39 of the Mustangs kills and led Trabuco to lopsided wins in the first two sets.
“They didn’t look like that on film,” joked Davidson. “They’re big. They’re big and they’re in a tough league and they play very tough. We knew if they were gonna jump on us early we were going to need to break they’re rhythm. They were on fire. We’re not a fast starting team and we definitely had to break their rhythm.”
That’s when Lucky Iosua started to pick up his pace in the third set alongside middle blocker KJ Hill. Hill helped his team fight back from a 21-21 tie in the third and was faced with the tough task of blocking against the tall hitters of Trabuco Hills. Hill finished the game with eight kills and a team high kill-percentage of 72.7% while visibly bringing life to his team both with his energy as a teammate and as a player.
“I just tried to rely on my team and talk to them during our timeouts and times between sets,” said Hill. “I really tried to boost their energy and give them confidence to let them know that we could win this. That ultimately brought the energy up to where I was able to play my best game.”
With momentum certainly wearing Poly black and gray, the Jackrabbits came into the fourth with all the momentum on an 8-3 opening run. Poly led by as much as 10 points in the set before going on to tie the game up at two sets apiece and take Trabuco Hills to a fifth and final set.
The Jackrabbits similarly opened the fifth with a 7-1 run to force a Mustang timeout. Lucky Iosua looked unstoppable in the set, earning his 31st kill at match-point to send the Jackrabbits to the third round of the CIF-SS Division 3 playoffs.
“Energy was big for us, especially there at the end,” said Iosua. “We just told ourselves first to five, then first to eighth, then first to 15. That’s all we wanted and we did it.”
Matt Tsao chipped in 10 kills alongside Iosua’s game high 31, meanwhile Hill added eight of his own. Ryder Tuoloa had all of the Jackrabbit’s 57 assists and added a team high 17 digs.
For the Mustangs, Drew Johsnin had a team-high 20 kills while Hayden Grange added 18. Brian Prendergast also contributed nine.
The Jackrabbits will go on to face the winner between Capo Valley Christian and Fountain Valley. The pair matchup on Monday and the winner will face Poly on Wednesday.
