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 Millikan Athletics for the 2025-26 school year is sponsored by Brian Ramsey and TLD Law.
When asked about Millikan’s hopes of winning a Moore League championship earlier this season, coach Matthew Johnson smiled before offering a humble answer: “Our goal is to not lose a set.”
Those words were cemented into the history books on Wednesday evening, as Millikan completed an undefeated Moore League championship without losing a single set, capping it with a 25-21, 25-17, 25-23 sweep at Long Beach Poly. The win breaks a 20-year drought for Millikan since its last league championship in 2006.
“It’s unreal,” Johnson said after the match. “I’m proud of these guys. I love that they believed me when I told them my goal for this season. They did it. They believed the whole way, even when we were down at times, and I heard them saying the stuff I normally say: play together, play for each other, shake off the mistakes. It’s just all really exciting.”
It’s finally been Millikan’s turn this season in what’s been a carousel of talent in the Moore League boys’ volleyball scene. The Rams have struck a balance of skill and experience from top to bottom of their roster, led by their senior core of outside hitters Jake Karkanen and Kobe Magdael along with middle blocker Evan Crucil-Chambers.
“They call themselves ‘The Big Three,’” Johnson said of the seniors. “You can see their leadership on and off the court. Guys look to them in the tough moments and if they’re not shaken then nobody’s shaken. The young guys have been feeding off of them and they’ve been playing like experienced veterans.”
The Big Three proved big once again against Poly on Wednesday, as Karkanen and Magdael combined for 14 kills at the pins along with an ace from Magdael. Most of Crucil-Chambers’ impact came on the defensive end of the net, as he got in on five of the team’s eight total blocks to go along with three kills and an ace.
“A lot of times theres games like this as a middle where you’re not in system, and you have to think like, ‘how can I make a difference?’ I just decided tonight that my difference-maker would be blocking,” Crucil-Chambers said. “My approach was just to go up, press straight, don’t get tooled, and I think I did a pretty good job.”
Crucil-Chambers was in on a pair of blocks to open the match, which set the tone for what was a dominant first two sets. The Rams opened the match on a 6-2 run and held that lead for the entire first set before leading wire-to-wire again in the second, with help from a five-point service run from Magdael that included a kill and an ace.
Poly held its only lead of the match in the third set after a 6-0 run with Wyatt Sheetz at the service line gave the Jackrabbits a 19-17 lead. The teams traded blows as Millikan worked its way back, eventually trailing 23-22. The Rams then went on a three-point run to close out the set, taking the court to celebrate their first Moore League championship in 20 years.
“We’ve been talking about this since we were freshmen,” Crucial-Chambers said of his Big Three. “It was the goal all along and it feels really good, I can’t lie.”
“It’s just a lot of joy. It’s honestly better than how we imagined it because it was Poly. Poly and Wilson have been the top teams the past few years so it’s been fun to play them and end up on top,” added Karkanen.
The CIF-SS boys’ volleyball brackets will be released this weekend, with the first round set to begin Tuesday.
