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 Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
The Wilson boys’ lacrosse team has made it a point to keep up their intensity high no matter who their opponent is.
Heading into their contest against Long Beach Poly, the Bruins wanted to prove that the league title goes through them after picking up a big win against Downey on Tuesday. Wilson kept that momentum as they scored early and often in a dominating 12-1 win over the Jackrabbits on Thursday.
“After our win against Downey, we just wanted to keep it pushing with our intensity on offense and pick up the defense a little bit,” Wilson’s Kaden Wright said. ”And I think we did that today.”
The Bruins’ have continued to thrive under first-year coach Erick Bear’s “go with the flow” philosophy and Jaxson Danell scored his first goal in the opening minute as Wilson took an early 1-0 lead.
Wilson continued to put the pressure on the Jackrabbits’ defense as they used their speed to create space as Kaden Wright, Ivan Van Divort and Shai Lieber all scored as the Bruins took a 5-0 lead after the first quarter. Van Divort led all scorers with two goals in the period.
Ty Kernan got the scoring started in the second as he scored twice before Wright made it an 8-0 lead with 5:09 left until halftime. Ryan Bruce continued his strong play in goal with a shutout in the opening frame and gained confidence seeing his teammates give him a big cushion.
“It gives me a lot of confidence,” Bruce said. “Having an offense that could score easily, it gives a lot of like, it’s a good cushion.”
That momentum continued into the second half as Wright completed his hat trick and Dannell scored twice to complete his own hat trick as Wilson forced a running clock with 4:31 remaining in the third quarter.
Wright and Dannell weren’t the only Bruins to score a hat trick as Kernan scored with less than three minutes left in the final period to make it three Bruins with a hat trick as the game. Ivan Van Divort added two goals, while Shai Lieber had one goal.
Long Beach Poly’s Keiran Lundy made sure the Jackrabbits wouldn’t be shutout as he scored in the final seconds of the game to make it 12-1.
“Now we know kind of what we need to work on,” Long Beach Poly coach John Gabriel said. “So hopefully we can dial some of those things in and get right back to it, but, you know, we don’t have any breaks.”
The Jackrabbits will be right back on the field this weekend as they take on two Orange County teams in Newport Harbor and Santiago, while Wilson continues Moore League action next Tuesday at home against Lynwood.
