Category: Sports Showcase

Ethan Neil, is a Junior playing in the Varsity Boys Golf team. Neil made the decision to start playing golf because he think of the sport as a “fun and different experience.”
Neil is motivated to play golf and better his playing because of his growing competitiveness. His goal is to further improve in his matches. To add on, Neil thinks that this season, he has been doing better than last year and enjoys playing tournaments with his team.
He also really enjoys his teammates and finds that playing with other people makes the sport more enjoyable. He especially enjoys playing golf with James Lemmis and believes that Lemmis is doing really good this season as well.
Neil is supported by his family and he plans on continuing to play golf as a senior but isn’t likely to continue to play in college.
When Neil attends college, he wants to focus on his studies and he plans on majoring in business and engineering.
He likes playing golf as a hobby, however he does not want to play seriously in the future.
If he wasn’t in golf, he would have liked to join track or cross country. But he feels like golf for now, is the right choice.

Kole Kikuta is only a sophomore and he is already become a valuable asset to his team. And has earned his spot on the varsity team. He is known to be one of the best players on the varsity boys golf team.
Kikuta enjoys playing golf because it is fair and all his friends play it.
Kikuta says that he is motivated by his teammates and his coaches. “I admire all their hard work and the devotion they all put into the improvement of our team.”
Kikuta believes that he is doing “pretty good” this season. He has developed better teamwork skills and has improved a lot on his craft. He says that he is “proud” of how far he has come.
In addition to being proud of himself he is also extremely proud of his teammates. He mentioned that he enjoys playing his matches because he likes cheering on his good friend and teammate, Henry Dearborn, because “when Henry plays good, [he plays] good too.”
Kikuta also supports and cheers on one of his other teammates, Dylan Valley, because Kikuta says that Dylan has been doing good and that he is phenomenal in his craft.
He is supported by his parents and little brother and will continue to “keep grinding” to get better.
Although Kikuta enjoys playing golf, he is unsure if he wants to play in college. For right now he is just playing golf for fun and because he just enjoys the sport and being able to play with all his friends.
Even though he is not entirely sure that he will play golf in college he is for certain that he will be playing golf in his junior year.

The Trackrabbits brought home another victory against the Jordan Panthers and the Compton Colts on March 13th at Long Beach Jordan High School. Although, the meet had many altercations, the Trackrabbits dominated on all levels, both boys and girls. The varsity boys were even given the opportunity to jog a 4 x 100m race due to Jordan disqualifying themselves with a false start.
The girls varsity ran for themselves due to the lack of runners coming from the other two teams. Queen Okoh, Shandria Martin, and Zamaella Mallet ran their hardest against each other in the 400m race.
They continued their Moore League victory streak at the California Relays on Friday and Saturday, March 15 and 16. At the meet Poly entered with 80 athletes and of those 80, more than half the team achieved a new PR or personal record, a medal, or in the case of the 4 x 400m race, broke a record in Long Beach history.
Overall, Long Beach Poly took 2nd for the boys and 4th for the girls in the California Relays Invitational. The team scored high against our Moore League competitors. From the district, Millikan, Wilson, and Lakewood participated in this meet. The track meet itself brought over 50 schools to Long Beach Wilson for both the Friday and Saturday.
The team altogether has done an amazing job so far this season. The long distance and sprint teams for the boys have overruled the Moore League conference schools in the season.
The girls on the other hand have created a constant stamina for themselves and are striving to improve their running skills for sprint team, as well as the distance team.
So far, a rivalry has sprung up against the boys short distance team against the Wilson Bruins and for the girls long distance team the Bruins have become a hassle.
As far as the field events, shotput, discus, and high jump have been successful for both the girls and boys. In the Jordan and Compton meet, shot put dominated by taking 1st place in boys varsity, 3rd on boys varsity, and 1st on frosoph. For the girls, JV and Varsity, the Jackrabbits take 1st, 2nd, and 3rd on both levels.
For the jumpers, Poly takes 1st and 2nd for the boys and 2nd for the girls.
Jumps Coach Chucky said, “There will be a time when the Jackrabbits will improve and stay consist, this only the beginning.”
Coach Chucky has been with Poly for many years and also has a reputation for coaching long jump at Cerritos College and taking Zhane Smith, a Poly alum, to the state championships two years ago.

Senior captain of the water Polo team, Jack Schwarz began his passion for water polo at the age of 11 “I tried a bunch of sports. I tried soccer, baseball, football, karate for a little bit, nothing really stuck.” Schwarz explains that while the sports were fun he never really enjoyed them.
He tried out a lot of different sports before he eventually settled on water polo. “When I finally went with water polo, I loved it, I just fell in love with the sport.”
Finally being able to find a sport that was fun for him and he was good at was what sparked his passion for water polo.
Enjoying the sport paid off. When Schwarz came to Poly he tried out for the water polo team. He explains that he had been playing for a while before he tried out so while he was nervous about trying out he had a feeling he was going to do well. He had the right feeling.
Schwarz continued to play all throughout high school and was captain for both this and last year.
Schwarz explains that becoming the team captain was a little difficult but he quickly adjusted and became really good at it. “Being a senior and a captain means that I have to be the one to lead people. The biggest thing is working with a team and being able to lead.”