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The Cerritos College men's water polo
team opened the South Coast Conference Championships in
strong fashion with a 21-6 win over Los Angeles
Trade-Tech College on Thursday at Chaffey College. But
in their semi-final game, they dropped a 13-11 decision
to the host Panthers later that day, which puts them in
the semi-final game on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. against
Mt. San Antonio College. For the Falcons (17-10), they
need to defeat the Mounties, who they have already
beaten twice this season, and then wait to find out if
they will be one of the teams selected to compete in the
Southern California Regional Playoffs. Cerritos has
advanced to the State Championships the last two
seasons.
In the win over LA Trade-Tech, head
coach
Joe Abing
gave several of his players the game off to get ready
for Chaffey, which resulted in several other players
putting up big numbers. The Falcons opened up a 14-5
halftime lead and cruised the rest of the way, with
freshman
Kevin Nguyen
(Cerritos HS)
turning in his best game of the season. He led the team
with four goals and also had a career-high eight steals,
as Cerritos used 10 different goal scorers and had 26
steals. Freshman goalkeeper
Billy Smith
(Cypress HS)
was very aggressive in the net, making 12 saves and also
had a season-high eight steals. The trio of sophomore
Cory Pettis
(Warren HS),
along with freshmen
Matthew Whalen
(St. John Bosco
HS) and
Nick Yong
(Kennedy HS)
each scored three goals in the win, while Whalen also
added three steals.
The team's leading scorers, freshman
Christian
Flores (Montebello
HS) and sophomore Omar
Ramirez (Bell
Gardens HS) were in action for the game
against Chaffey, which saw the team fall behind 6-3 at
halftime after being outscored 5-1 in the second
quarter. Cerritos trailed the remainder of the game and
suffered their second loss to the Panthers in eight
days. Flores, along with freshman
AJ Abrego
(El Rancho HS)
each scored three goals to lead the team, while
sophomore
Placido Diaz
(Bell Gardens HS)
and freshman
Jan-Michael
Pineda (Cerritos
HS) both added two goals. Smith turned away
seven shots and finished with three steals in goal for
the Falcons. |
