It’s not a surprise that the Poly girls’ basketball team finds themselves back in the CIF semifinals—actually, it would be more surprising if they weren’t, possessed as they are of the bracket’s top-seed, and national top-five status.  But even the most diehard green and gold fan would have had a hard time imagining the Rabbits would be this dominant through the quarterfinals, a dominance underlined by a 79-47 win over Colony on the road.

The win means Poly’s margins of victory through the first three rounds are 49, 74, and 32 points, or an average of 51.6.  They’ve scored an average of 81 points, and allowed an average of 29.6—unbelievable numbers, even for Poly.  By contrast, when they face Colony last year in a turnover-laden State Regional game, they won by just seven points.

Wednesday’s victory can be attributed to an excellent gameplan, and an excellent execution—coach Carl Buggs was impressed with Colony’s starting five, but saw a potential weakness in their depth.  So he wanted to tire Colony out, and, if he could, get some players on the bench.

“We got them in foul trouble early,” he said.  “By the second quarter we got a couple kids with three fouls.”  With the floor opened up, Ariya Crook-Williams took over in the third quarter, with ten of her team-high 17 points in that period.  Tajanae Winston had 13 points, TaNitra Byrd (back from a knee bruise) had 12 points, and Brittany Wilson had ten.  Thaddesia Southall was the leader on the boards with 12 rebounds; Sheila Boykin had 11.

Poly will face Etiwanda in the semifinals.  The game is schedule by CIF default for Saturday at 7pm, but since Poly has the home game, and since Poly’s boys’ team is already hosting Etiwanda’s boys’ team in the semifinals on Friday, Buggs said he will see if Etiwanda is amenable to a double-header.  If they are (and we really, really, really hope they are), we’ll have a doubleheader Friday night at LBCC, with two CIF semifinal games between Poly and Etiwanda.