GRANADA HILLS — Sun Valley Poly’s boys basketball team advanced to its first CIF L.A. City Section championship game since 2019 by beating Granada Hills Charter 66-53 on Wednesday night.
“Our defense has put us over the top this whole week,” Poly head coach Joe Wyatt said. “We focused on what their sets were and shutting them down.”
Poly will play East Valley League rival Grant in the Division I championship game Saturday at 4 p.m. at Pasadena City College.
The Parrots fought off two late comeback attempts by the Highlanders and JD Wyatt, son of head coach Joe, scored 34 points in the game. Quian Khawaja added 17 points for the Parrots and Julius Washington contributed 18 points for Granada Hills Charter.
JD Wyatt, who averages 28.4 points per game, scored all but one of Poly’s 14 points in the second quarter but had the hot hand since the game started. He hit a jump shot with 4:40 remaining in the first quarter after a deep Quian Khawaja 3-pointer from the top of the key to give the Parrots their first lead of the game.
“They were ready to go,” Joe Wyatt said. “The boys have been ready all week. We’ve been talking about not starting slow. In two games we started slow and today we started out quick and our defense helped us to start out quick.”
Poly closed out the first quarter on a 14-0 scoring run and maintained its momentum in the second frame on both offense and defense.
“We kept our composure,” JD said. “Keeping our composure is really big for us.”
Granada Hills Charter passed well around the perimeter but couldn’t break through the Parrots’ defense to create lucrative scoring opportunities. Poly held a 33-23 lead at halftime.
The Highlanders used an 8-0 scoring run in an attempted comeback in the third frame and got within two points of tying the game on multiple occasions.
Washington made back-to-back layups to start the third frame and made two free throws with 4:54 to go to bring the score to 38-36. JD made a layup and Khawaja hit two free throws of his own to extend the Parrots’ lead once again.
JD hit a deep 3-pointer just before the buzzer to give his team a 10-point advantage. The Highlanders inched closer again and trailed by seven points with a minute left in the game, but two free throws and a dunk by JD shut down the game.
Joe burst into celebration, stomping and flexing when his son threw down the dunk. The bond isn’t just between them, though — it extends throughout the entire team.
“They hang out with each other a lot,” Joe said. “They’re always together, so that’s big for us.”