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Needing
only one win to reach the South Coast Conference
Tournament championship game, the Cerritos College men’s
water polo team was extended to overtime before coming
away with a 7-6 win over host Mt. San Antonio College on
Friday. The Falcons (19-8), who received a bye in the
first round, will now face cross town rival Long Beach
City College on Saturday at 2:15 p.m. at Mt. San Antonio
College. Long Beach City reached the championship game
by beating Chaffey College in sudden death. In their
only match of the season, the Vikings handed the Falcons
an 11-6 loss.
Trailing 6-5
late in the fourth period, sophomore
AJ Abrego
(El Rancho HS) scored with less than three
minutes remaining on a pass from sophomore
Austin Cooper
(Downey HS). After neither team scored the rest
of the way, the game went into overtime, which consists
of two three-minute periods.
In the first
overtime period, the Falcons struck, as freshman
Michael
Villalobos (Whittier HS) scored his
second goal of the game with a little over a minute
remaining to give Cerritos a 7-6 lead. There would be no
other scoring the rest of the game, giving the Falcons
the win.
“It was a great
game from start to finish,” said Cerritos head coach
Joe Abing.
“We knew Mt. SAC would try to get the ball to their
leading scorer (75-goal scorer Mickey Edwards), so we
keyed on him and tried to shut down their offense. We
did a great job and finished with 21 steals, which
helped cover our missed chances on offense. We can do a
better job on offense, but it was to our advantage that
we have a variety of guys who can score for us.”
It came into
play for the Falcons, who had six different players
score, with Villalobos leading the team with two goals.
Defensively, Abrego led the team with four steals, while
sophomore
Jimmy
Quintana (Bell Gardens HS) and Cooper
each had three. Sophomore goalkeeper
Alan Nevarez
(Downey HS/Long Beach City College) came up with
10 saves.
“I though we got
great games from Jimmy and (sophomore)
Andy Laffie
(El Rancho HS),” added Abing. “Jimmy has missed
the last few games with an injury, so it was really nice
to have him back. We had to limit his minutes because of
conditioning, but when he was in the pool, he played
great.”
“The guys are
really excited to be playing Long Beach in the finals,”
continued Abing. “We are more prepared to play them this
time than the last time, so it should be a good game.” |
