The562’s coverage of high school volleyball in 2026 is brought to you by the MLP’s Bay Area Breakers.
The562’s coverage of Long Beach Poly Athletics for the 2026-27 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.
The Long Beach Poly girls’ volleyball team entered the year with a long to-do list. The first stop on that list was win another Moore League title and do it in dominant fashion, without losing a match or a set. The Jackrabbits crossed that off the vision board on Tuesday evening, putting together an impressive sweep of a quality Millikan team, 25-10, 25-19, 25-22.
“It’s hard to stay focused and for us to be tested and have to win ugly in the third set, it’s a testament to us being able to dig in and overcome some adversity,” said Poly coach Gerald Aquiningoc. “I’m really happy, this was a good test before playoffs.”
The league title is the fourth in a row for the Jackrabbits, meaning that their senior class has won the league title every year they’ve been in the program.
To secure the win and the sweep on Tuesday, the Jackrabbits once again relied on a dominant serve attack, and overcame a strong challenge from the host Rams in the third set. That frame saw the Rams take a 19-15 lead, before the Jackrabbits walked them down with some big plays from their senior class–Aleeya Salima had three kills, McKenna Iamaleava had one, Allison Wetteland had a block, and Illinois-bound libero Cika Talaga had an ace.
“There’s a really high level of trust between all of us,” said Saleema. “We’re good at playing together and I know that if we’re not killing the ball in the front row then Cika or McKennah are serving an ace or getting a big dig.”
The Jackrabbits notched 17 aces in the match, a remarkable number for a match where they only scored 75 points. The team is averaging somewhere around 15 aces a match in Moore League play, meaning about 20% of the points they scored in their league title run were scored from the back line.
Iamaleava led the way with six aces to go along with her 10 kills and seven digs, but eight Jackrabbits served at least one ace and four of them served at least two (Iamaleava with six, Talaga with four, Avery Milburn with two and Keola Napoleon Alvarez with two.
“I preach that our serving is our first attack, and as long as we’re eliminating some options on the other side, it makes it easier for us to play defense,” said Aquiningoc. “We don’t care about aces, aces are going to come by the way that we serve though.”
Poly was led by Iamaleava’s stat-stuffing performance as well as nine kills and two aces from Milburn, four aces and eight digs from Talaga, and eight kills by Salima.
“This is a special group of seniors, being able to win league all four years feels great,” said Talaga.
Millikan coach Gus Tuaniga was happy with the progress his team has made this year, as the Rams finished second in the Moore League and project to Division 2 of the CIF-SS playoffs. He was pleased with the fight his team showed in the third set.
“We always talk about having grit, we’re not going to learn anything if we just give them the game,” he said. “If you show some fight it’s a learning experience. I don’t really care about the errors, I care about how we react to the errors.”
The Rams were led by Lila Walters, who set a strong match for the Rams and especially in the third set; as well as six kills apiece from Natasha Willaert and Estela Lopez.
The teams wrap up play this week, with playoff brackets set to drop Friday at 3pm; we’ll have them posted live on the website.
