“Run it back!” was the phrase echoing across social media Sunday afternoon from Long Beach Poly football fans, players, and coaches. The Jackrabbits will get a chance to do exactly that this Saturday at 6 p.m. as they travel to Gardena Serra for the CIF State Division 1A SoCal Regional Championship.
The winner of the game will advance to the Division 1A CIF State championship on Dec. 11 at Saddleback College.
The local rivalry between the Jackrabbits and Cavaliers has become one of Southern California’s best series over the last several years, as the teams’ last six meetings have all been decided by one score. It will be the third time the two teams meet in the 2021 calendar year alone since they played during the Spring season as well as in this year’s season opener.
When the teams met in week one, the Jackrabbits were without several key starters and Serra wasn’t healthy either. The teams battled it out to a 28-27 Serra win. In the Spring, Poly won 27-21 in overtime.
Serra won in 2019 by a score of 27-24 and the previous year Serra won 29-25.
The CIF State office went against the grain in setting up the showdown between Poly and Serra. Typically teams from the same section don’t meet in the regional game (just one such matchup occurred in 2019) and typically teams don’t play rematch games. Given the thrilling history of close contests between the two teams, we’re so glad that they did–the hype and excitement around this game will be top-notch, and befitting of a CIF State regional game.
Serra is coming off the CIF-SS Division 3 win, where they comfortably beat Apple Valley, while Poly comfortably beat St. Francis for the CIF-SS Division 4 crown.
We’ll have full coverage this week in the run-up to the game, as well as coverage Saturday night at Serra.
