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.
The Long Beach Poly girls’ volleyball team’s most effective attack is their first one. The Jackrabbits are in the midst of a highly successful season, one that’s been powered by a historically successful serve attack.
The Jackrabbits (26-7, 8-0) averaged 15 aces a match during the Moore League schedule, a preposterous number given that they swept all eight matches. That means around 20% of the points they scored in league this year happened without the ball coming back over to their side.
“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 Poly coach Gerald Aquiningoc, the architect of Poly’s multi-faceted service approach.
Aquiningoc said that while his team’s ace number can be high, that’s not the focus of the approach—the focus is moving the setter enough with a shaky pass that offensive options come off the table.
“We don’t care about aces,” said Aquiningoc. “Aces are going to come by the way that we serve, but that’s not our concern.”
The aces have been impressive, though. In addition to the gaudy Moore League numbers, they put up 13 aces against Redondo Union in a five-set win at the end of the regular season, and had nine aces in their first-round sweep of Campbell Hall. Aquiningoc was true to his word that night, dissatisfied with the pressure his team put on despite the number.
“I wasn’t really too happy with our service pressure today, even though probably stat-wise it looked good,” said Aquiningoc.
The Jackrabbits have needed the service pressure. They’re in the CIF-SS Division 2 playoffs as a top 10 team in the section, and are ranked No. 9 in the State by MaxPreps. The other teams competing at Poly’s level tend to be filled with massive pin hitters, which the Jackrabbits don’t line up as well against. They’re a highly-skilled and technical team with knowledgable, scrappy players, but they don’t have a six-foot-five block.
That means they need to use the serve to keep setters and hitters from being able to tee off on high-set balls.
Poly’s players credit Aquiningoc for his daily emphasis of the service game, which they work on every day in every practice.
“He does a great job, we work every day on tossing it high, max jumping and trying to get on top of the ball,” said Illinois-bound libero Cika Talaga, one of Poly’s top weapons from the backline alongside UC Irvine commit McKenna Iamaleava and Cal State Dominguez Hills-bound Aleeya Salima. “I think everyone on the team brings a difference set of skills when it comes to serving, but we have a lot of people who can go back there and put an ace down.”
In their final Moore League match of the season, a sweep at Millikan, the Jackrabbits had 17 aces, with eight players recording at least one and four of them serving at least two.
“Coach G is always emphasizing that it’s not our first contact it’s our first attack,” said Iamaleava. “We work on it a lot in practice and I think it translates to the game really well.”
Iamaleava has been the best example of that, frequently putting up unheard-of numbers with seven or eight aces in a match, even against high-level competition.
Millikan coach Gus Tuaniga praised Poly’s serve approach, and said it took his team out of their first meeting. Rams setter Lila Walters spent a lot of her efforts chasing down errant passes, making it difficult for the UC Santa Cruz-committed setter to control the game.
“They’re very experienced, they’re a very good serving team,” said Tuaniga. Asked what made them so difficult to receive serve from, Tuaniga shook his head and laughed. “They know where to serve, who to serve, how to serve, and you know they’re Polynesians so they got some power behind it. I can’t be mad about it, you know what I’m saying?”
The Jackrabbits faces Sherman Oaks Notre Dame tonight in the CIF-SS Division 2 quarterfinals; they have already secured a state playoff berth.
