Photo by Matt Guardabascio

Long Beach Poly is going a long way towards restoring the luster to the green and gold this year, with a  league title, and a CIF semifinal match tonight against the Etiwanda Eagles at 7pm at LBCC.  But to reach the goal they set for themselves this offseason (league title, CIF title, state title), they’ll need to beat a very good, upset-minded Etiwanda team that already knocked off Corona Centennial.

Byron Wesley (#25), a 6’5″ junior forward is the biggest threat—averaging over 18 points a game this year, Wesley is the leader, and our own Ryan ZumMallen (who saw Etiwanda in a tournament earlier this year) says he’s the real deal.  He can knock down the three, throw down, pass, pretty much everything you could ask a high school junior to do.  Fortunately for Poly, their strength game in and game out has been defense. 

It showed in their last game against Los Osos—Kendall Williams seemed primed to rip into them with a huge first half.  The hassling defense of Robert Nixon held him to just six points in the second.

Because of his size and position, the defensive duties will likely be left primarily to Roshcon Prince and Shelton Boykin—should they clamp down, and should the rest of the Poly D handle Jordan Daniels (a 5’9″ guard who’s the second leading scorer)…well, it could be a good night for Poly, provided they run the court and get into a better offensive rhythm than they had against Los Osos, where it took three quarters for the Rabbits to warm up.