The562’s Poly and football coverage for the 2026-27 school year is sponsored by Long Beach Poly alums Wendell “WoWo” Moe, Jr. & Tyson Ruffins.
Seventy years of history come down to Friday night as Long Beach Poly prepares to host their last game at Veterans Memorial Stadium on LBCC’s campus. Vets has been Poly’s home since it was built in the 1950s, and has seen countless Jackrabbit greats and classic games over the years. It’s been a delayed emotional reaction from the team because each of the last two years were billed as the final campaigns at Vets before this Friday officially being named the last game.
The stadium is being torn down to make room for a quarter-billion dollar athletic complex that includes a new state-of-the-art football stadium, which will once again be the Jackrabbits’ home.
The game is important as well, with Poly coming in 1-0 and hosting 1-0 Yorba Linda, with the two teams ranked No. 25 and No. 28 in the HSRatings CIF-SS list (which is used to make playoff brackets at the end of the year). Still, Poly players and coaches admit that the last game is carrying a lot of weight for them.
“Of course, my dad once touched that field so that’s a big thing for me for sure,” said Poly five-star DB Donte Wright. “A lot of my family members, our head coach, a lot of our coaches played there, and a lot of great players. We’re just trying to go off with a bang for that last game at Vets.”
Poly head coach Travon Patterson did indeed play at Vets as a Jackrabbit, along with most of his coaching staff. With Poly having three different head coaches over the last three years, and with rumors for the stadium to close in each of those years before finally doing so this year, he said it means a lot to him that the responsibility to close it out falls to him.
“It’s a big moment and a bittersweet moment, it’s unfortunate we have to leave it due to construction,” he said. “The good thing is when it’s rebuilt, we’ll be back in that thing rocking and rolling to open up the new stadium. But I don’t the kids, this is the last one and you don’t want to be the team that closes Vets down with a loss.”
To close the stadium out right, the Jackrabbits will have to contend with a very good Yorba Linda team that’s been quietly one of the better public school programs in Southern California the last few years. The Mustangs are fresh off a 34-21 win over Laguna Beach last week.
They’re led by senior quarterback Noah Trujillo, who threw for 230 yards and a pair of touchdowns in their opener.
“They play the game the right way, they’re going to be disciplined,” said Patterson. “We have to match that energy if we want a chance to win. We have to execute and eliminate the penalties, and our team is going to be ready for that.”
We’ll have live updates and full coverage of the game.
