This time the deficit was too much for Centennial.
So was the size.
In a first half that looked eerily familiar to Corona Centennial's come-from-behind 60-58 upset win over Mater Dei in the semis on Tuesday night, the much bigger Long Beach Poly Jackrabbits dominated the first 16 minutes of play and pulled out to a dominant lead at the break.
Whereas the Huskies' chaotic press disrupted Mater Dei's offense allowing Centennial's big three to rally for the win four days ago, this time around it was no match for the size of the top-seeded Jackrabbits as Long Beach Poly easily defeated Centennial, 68-52 in the CIF SS Division I-AA final at the Anaheim Convention Center on Saturday night.
"This means a lot, not just for me and for my teammates, but for the city of Long Beach and for our community," senior guard Alexis Moore said. "We haven't won a CIF title in seven years."
The top-seeded Jackrabbits never trailed in scoring the first eight points of the game and led by as many as 23 points in game that was decided by half time.
"It was one of our goals to achieve this, especially us seniors," forward Ryan Anderson said. "We worked so hard to achieve this.
"There was a target on our back all year. It gave us extra focus for every practice and every game. We knew we would get everyone's best shot."
Centennial's best shot came during a 6-0 run in the second quarter after Poly had opened up a 14-point lead midway through the second quarter. Centennial went on one of their patented runs scoring the next six to seize momentum and cut the deficit to eight. But Moore and Anderson then hit back-to-back three pointers to quickly break the Huskies' back.
"At that point it was a relief," said Moore who scored 15 points and added three assists. "I hit the three and Ryan hit the three and we knew we were back in control and we knew it was our game."
Centennial head coach Josh Giles called it a momentum killer. "You could kind of see our guys getting into it. The bench was getting into it, we were getting going. Then they hit those two big threes and the momentum stopped."
Centennial would get no closer the rest of the way.
"We came out and executed what we thought we needed to do to be successful in terms of tempo," Poly head coach Sharrief Metoyer said. "We wanted to make it a half court game and never let it get chaotic. We were always in control."
The already undersized Huskies were playing without senior forward Dominic Dunlap, out with a concussion suffered vs. Mater Dei.
"Without Dominic we were were in a tough position, we had a guard guarding a post player. We did the best job we could on (Anderson) but it was a tough position.
Poly dominated the boards by a 43-16 margin - Anderson out rebounded Centennial himself by grabbing 21 boards to go with his 18 points after an assistant coach challenged him to go for 20 and 20 in a pregame prep talk.
Senior guard Alex Carmon, whose father Troy also won a CIF championship with Long Beach Poly in 1981, chipped in 12 points and sophomore Roschon Prince added 11 as the Jackrabbits boasted four players in double figures.
Centennial were led by their big three seniors - Michael Caffey with 17 points, Gelaun Wheelwright with 13 and Dominique Dunning with 10.
"It was their overall length," Dunning said of Long Beach Poly. "No team is taller than Poly across the board. They were bigger than us at every position."
Giles added, "they are a good team. There's a reason they were No. 1 all year."
