Pac-5 Playoffs: Long Beach Poly

I already wrote a pregame article on Poly's first-round matchup against Santa Ana Mater Dei, (which can be viewed here) so this will be devoted to the rest of Poly's postseason outlook.

Last year, Poly followed up two consecutive Pac-5 championships with a second-round exit to future Division II state champion Servite.  Even though Poly usually makes it at least to the semifinals, the Jackrabbits went surprisingly deep into the playoffs when considering the caliber of the team that took the field last year.

Poly upset Los Alamitos by a convincing margin and then gave Servite a tough fight but eventually fell, 21-18 (keep in mind that Poly had lost to Servite 30-7 earlier in the year during the non-league portion of their season).

After Mater Dei (Second Round)

If Poly were to make it past Mater Dei, their second-round matchup would be against either #4 seed Bishop Amat or Tesoro.  Both of these schools nearly beat Poly in their 2008 title run, forcing the Jackrabbits to come from behind in the final minutes to take home victories.  You may remember that Poly beat Tesoro for the Pac-5 championship at Angel Stadium (which is horrible for football, by the way) before losing to Grant in the Open Division State Championships.

Home-field advantage would go to Tesoro if they won (because they play at Bishop Amat this week), and Poly would get a home game if Bishop Amat emerged with a victory.

Semi-Finals

#1 seed Mission Viejo is in Poly's side of the bracket, and based on their dominating performances this year, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to assume that the Diablos would at least make it to the semi-finals.

Poly got blown out by Mission Viejo earlier this year in an ugly 37-7 loss that many of the Poly faithful would like to forget.  It is safe to say that Poly has improved a lot since that game, but hasn't everybody?  If Poly made it to this point, I would expect a closer game than the first one, but not necessarily a Jackrabbit victory.

The other possible opponents for the semi-finals are Long Beach Wilson (who will likely get creamed by Mission Viejo in the first round), Santa Margarita (whom Poly beat in the second round of the 2007 playoffs after losing to them during non-league play in 2006), and Edison (whom also has some history with Poly over the years).

Finals

If Poly was able to make an unbelievable run through the playoffs and reach this point, they would go to Angel Stadium for the finals.  The top seeds in the other half of the bracket are perennial power Servite and newcomer Alemany.  Any Jackrabbit team capable of beating Mission Viejo this year would have a much lighter test in the finals and would probably take home the title.

State Championships

Because the state bowl games are voted on, it is very unlikely that Poly would make it to this point even if they did win the Pac-5.  After all, it wasn't enough in 2007 when their only loss was a close one to City Section champion Birmingham.  And with two embarrasing losses this year, it would take some very convincing victories for the Jackrabbits to even be considered.

According to the seedings, Poly is predicted to lose in the second round to Bishop Amat.  However, Poly always has something extra during the playoffs, fighting hard to the end and only losing unbelievably close games.

For example, the Jackrabbits have a 11-3 record in the playoffs over the last 4 years.  Their losses:

2006: lost to Orange Lutheran, 23-22 after nearly erasing a 23-0 deficit and losing on a  missed extra point that should have been replayed because of an uncalled Orange Lutheran offside.

2008: lost to Sacramento Grant, 25-20, unable to pull off a comeback victory as they had done in each playoff game that year.

2009: lost to Servite, 21-18 after leading 18-14 with 4:29 left.  Poly would have won had there not been a questionable pass-interference called on the Jackrabbits on a Servite 4h and 3 during their game-winning drive.

Few schools across the nation can claim the same kind of playoff success as Poly can.  Don't expect the Jackrabbits to fold easily.  Something about elimination games makes Poly that much better each year.