Poly Boys Lose Big Lead but Win

No lead is safe when you’re the Long Beach Poly boys’ basketball team.

For the second consecutive game, the second-seeded Jackrabbits gave up a comfortable early lead in the Southern Section Division I-AA playoffs but again held on for a victory, with a 69-58 win over visiting Fontana on Tuesday.

“That has been one of our Achilles’ heels,” Poly Coach Sharrief Metoyer said. “We get up and we get lethargic and lazy.”

Poly (25-3) made seven of its first nine shots and jumped to a 14-5 lead in the second-round game, but the Steelers (17-8) outscored the Jackrabbits, 13-4, over the next six minutes.

Fontana’s Sean Green tied the score at 22, but the Jackrabbits scored the final five points of the first half and the first nine of the second to take a 36-22 lead.

The Steelers cut the lead to seven three times after that but couldn’t get any closer.

The Jackrabbits, who took a 25-5 lead over visiting Valencia in the first round only to win on a buzzer-beating layup by Marcus Lewis, were led by Lewis with 22 points and Chris Fields with 20.

Green scored 26 to lead Fontana, which missed 14 of 23 free throws.

It proved to be an upsetting evening in Division I-A second-round play as Mark Wells scored 26 points to lead host Simi Valley to a 54-47 victory over second-seeded Glendora, and host Huntington Beach Marina, behind James Lambert’s 18 points, toppled third-seeded Lake Forest El Toro, 48-45.

Jordan Farmar of Woodland Hills Taft is playing his best basketball of the season heading into a quarterfinal game tonight against visiting Los Angeles Crenshaw in the Championship division of the City Section playoffs.

Coach Derrick Taylor said the third-seeded Toreadors (24-2) are also receiving key contributions from Calvin Haynes, a 6-foot-1 sophomore guard, who regained eligibility at the start of the semester.

Haynes has averaged 14.4 points in his first five games back and has earned a starting role alongside Farmar, the UCLA-bound point guard who is averaging 27.5 points.

“He’s a Steve Smith clone,” said Taylor, comparing Haynes to the former Taft three-sport star now playing football for USC.

Dan Arritt

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Boys’ Soccer

Big upsets were the order of the day in the second round of the Southern Section playoffs Tuesday, topped by host Chino Hills Ayala’s 3-1 victory over No. 2-seeded Huntington Beach Edison in a Division I game.

Michael Randolph scored all three goals for Ayala (15-5-5), which finished second behind top-seeded La Verne Damien in the Sierra League this season. Edison, the No. 2 team in the Southland in The Times’ final regular season rankings, finished at 21-3.

In other games, La Palma Kennedy stunned top-seeded and third-ranked Santa Ana Saddleback, 1-0, in a Division III contest, and Santa Ana Valley upset top-seeded Pomona Ganesha, 4-3, in Division IV.

John Ortega

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Girls’ Basketball

Newhall Hart’s Ashlee Trebilcock can look to increase her school career scoring record when the Indians (25-1) play at Simi Valley (20-8) in a Southern Section Division I-A second-round game tonight.

Trebilcock, a junior, broke the record Saturday by scoring 25 points in a 71-50 victory over Santa Maria Righetti in a first-round game.

She has 1,627 points, which is 22 more than Amanda Patton scored before graduating after last season.

Martin Henderson

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Girls’ Water Polo

Agoura and two-time defending Southern Section Division IV champion Santa Barbara will face off for the first time in two years in a semifinal playoff game today at Agoura.

In their last meeting in February 2002, Santa Barbara edged Agoura, 8-7, in the Division II semifinals.

In 2001, Agoura handed Santa Barbara a 5-2 loss in the Division II championship match, and in 2000, Santa Barbara prevailed in the Division II final match, 7-6.

Meghan Corso is the leading scorer for Agoura (22-8) with 95 goals, while Santa Barbara (27-3), which has won 20 consecutive games, employs the 1-2 punch of junior Kami Craig (115 goals) and senior Miranda Nichols (77 goals and 75 assists).

Lauren Peterson

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Passings

Mark Alai, who worked on high school sports coverage for The Times the last seven years, died Saturday of a heart attack. He was 42. His funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Thursday at Pierce Bros. Smith Mortuary, 627 Main St., Huntington Beach, with burial immediately following at Good Shepherd Cemetery, 8301 Talbert Ave., Huntington Beach.