Dixon and Poly win again

SACRAMENTO -- The best things have come in threes for the Long Beach Poly girls’ basketball team.

The Jackrabbits won their third consecutive Division I state title Saturday night against Berkeley, opening a sizable first-half lead and coasting to a 55-31 victory at Arco Arena. They accomplished the feat behind the best girls’ basketball player to ever wear a Poly uniform, Jasmine Dixon.

“She laid the foundation for everyone else,” Coach Carl Buggs said. “She set the standard so high, it will be hard to follow.”

Dixon, a 6-foot senior guard who signed with Rutgers, didn’t deliver her best performance of the postseason, but her presence was enough to carry the Jackrabbits. Dixon finished with a team-high 17 points and 10 rebounds against a team that knew her as well as she knew them.

Poly (31-2) had defeated Berkeley (29-4) in the previous two state championships, when Dixon combined for 41 points and 27 rebounds.

With the victory, Poly joined San Diego Point Loma as the only girls’ teams to win three consecutive Division I titles.

“As a whole team, they have what every team needs,” said junior point guard Camila Rosen, who had a team-high 15 points for Berkeley.

Playing a key role for Poly was senior point guard April Cook, who entered averaging six points and three steals but finished with 12 points and seven steals. Cook, who signed with Washington State, spent much of her court time guarding Berkeley’s best player, Jazmine Perkins, another Washington State-bound guard.

Perkins picked up three fouls in the first half and finished with seven points on three-for-16 shooting.

“We wanted to focus on not letting Jazmine Perkins get going,” Buggs said.

Poly, ranked No. 3 in the nation by USA Today, jumped to a 28-11 lead in the second quarter and extended it to 35-17 at the half. The Jackrabbits went the first seven minutes of the third quarter without a field goal, but they still led by 14 points.

“It was basically defense on both sides,” said Dixon, who re-entered after a brief rest and converted a three-point play, then assisted on a layup by Thaddesia Southall that pushed the advantage back to 21 entering the fourth quarter.

Even though it was the third state title in a row for the Jackrabbits, Buggs knows where this team stands.

“I feel like this is the best team in Poly history,” he said.

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dan.arritt@latimes.com