The562’s high school soccer coverage for the 2025-26 season is sponsored by Long Beach Poly soccer alum Kennedy Justin.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Former Jackrabbits Wendell “WoWo” Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.
The562’s coverage of Cabrillo Athletics is sponsored by the Cohn Family.
If Opening Night of Moore League boys’ soccer is a preview of what’s to come this season, it’s gonna be a wild ride.
Long Beach Poly and Cabrillo played a remarkable 80 minutes of soccer, with an opening-minute goal, a late equalizer, 10 total yellow and red cards issued, and one side playing with just nine players for the final 20 minutes of the match.
When the madness concluded, the teams shared the spoils after a memorable 2-2 draw–one that had both sidelines wondering “What if?”
“The Moore League games are very emotional. They’re very physical. And they’re not always pretty,” said Cabrillo head coach Pat Noyes after the draw. “(Poly) wanted the tie more than we wanted the win. I think that that’s a very good way to look at it.”
The night couldn’t have started much better for the host Jackrabbits, as they took the lead just seconds into the match. Junior Matthew Sanchez made a nice run up the home sideline, and sent a dangerous cross through the box and toward the back post, where classmate Carlos Casillas was charging in to put away the go-ahead goal.
“I was already anticipating the cross, because I’ve known Matthew since we were four, we’ve played together since AYSO,” said Casillas. “So I was expecting that; the chemistry we have is great.”
The visiting Jags were unfazed, and quickly settled into the game, sending a shot deflecting off the Poly crossbar in the 5th minute. Then in the 21st minute, the match changed drastically when Poly defender Roger Juarez was issued a straight red card on a challenge that brought down Cabrillo’s Ivan Perez.
After a bouncing ball snuck past Poly’s back line, Perez had a free run on goal before Juarez challenged him from behind and was sent off. The Jags were unable to score on the ensuing free kick, but had an upper hand with the Jackrabbits down to 10 men.
Long Beach Poly held that 1-0 lead at the half, but it wouldn’t last long. The Jags were squarely on the front foot to open the second half, and it took just three minutes to find an equalizer. After a flurry of shot attempts, junior Dario Morales was able to find space near the top of the box, and tucked his shot inside the post and past a diving keeper to get the Jags level.
Their attack didn’t stop, as the Westsiders were able to consistently put pressure on Poly’s defenders. Eventually, a handball was called against Poly’s Daniel Silva inside his own penalty area, giving Cabrillo the chance to take the lead from the spot.
Senior captain Alan Fuentes stepped up and placed his penalty kick perfectly inside the right-hand post, kicking off a big celebration at the corner flag. The Jags scored both goals in a 10-minute span, taking a 2-1 lead in the 53rd minute, while still holding that man advantage.
“I told them, if we got one, I thought we’d get two,” said Noyes of his message to his team at halftime. “But I really believed we needed the third, and we didn’t get that and it came back to haunt us in the end. But you know what, a point on the road in this league is good. Nobody in this league is going to roll over.”
At the hour mark, just seven minutes after Cabrillo’s go-ahead goal, a player from each team got into a skirmish after battling for a ball. Teammates from both sides rushed in, as did the referees, and it was another major turning point in the match. Cabrillo’s Chris Rodriguez received a yellow card for his role, but Poly’s Joseph Lemus received a pair of yellow cards in quick succession, leading to the second red card of the match shown to the Jackrabbits.
Remarkably, down 2-1 on the scoreboard and down to just nine players on the pitch, the Jackrabbits didn’t back down. In fact, they were the more dangerous side to close out the game despite playing at a steep disadvantage.
“’I’m just proud of my boys for making that comeback,” said LB Poly head coach Carlos Casillas. “Down two players, down one goal, just the fight and the energy these kids brought and not giving up is exactly what we wanted … It’s pretty crazy to say, but in the last 15 minutes, I think we actually outplayed them. So I was proud of my boys. We asked for effort and they gave it.”
The other Casillas nearly scored his second goal to tie things up in the 64th minute with a shot off the Cabrillo crossbar, but he wouldn’t miss his next opportunity with around 10 minutes left to play. The junior was camped in the middle of the Cabrillo box, and once the ball fell to him he was able to put a shot on target and over the Cabrillo keeper for a dramatic equalizer.
“I saw our nine, Chava, and I was yelling at him to leave it, because I thought that I set up a little better for the shot,” the junior forward explained. “He was blocking the player’s vision, which really helped me out, since I got the clear shot. And honestly, since I’m just in the box I just wanted to get a shot off, because you never know what’s gonna happen in the box. And after I scored, it was an amazing feeling.”
During the celebration, there was some added commotion along the Poly sideline, when another red card was shown to the Jackrabbits–only this time to an assistant coach, not a player.
In total, there were six cards shown to the Jackrabbits, three of which were red. Meanwhile, Cabrillo was shown four yellow cards during the match. After there were three cautions in the first half, a whopping seven were handed out over the final 40 minutes of play.
The Jackrabbits were understandably pleased to escape with a point under those circumstances, but Coach Casillas urged his team to consider what the outcome could have been if his team had been at full strength the entire night.
“That’s exactly what I told the boys: we did it with nine, imagine if we got 11,” he said. “So we do need to understand who the referees are, how the whistle’s being blown, we’ve gotta be a little bit smarter than that. But yeah, if we had 11, I would have loved to see that.”
Long Beach Poly (1-4-1, 0-0-1) will be back in action on Friday at Bellflower and will return to Moore League action on Jan. 7 as they host defending champion Millikan.
Cabrillo (6-3-1, 0-0-1) takes on Godinez on Friday and returns from Winter Break to play Lakewood on the road on Jan. 7.
