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03.08.08 - Cerritos
College women's basketball
advances to the State
Tournament with a 55-30 win
over Antelope Valley College
Saturday night. |
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Photo Gallery |
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As the old
saying goes: Offense Wins Games. Defense
Wins Championships. For the Cerritos
College women’s basketball team, it
definitely was their defense that
enabled them to hold Antelope Valley
College to just 2-of-31 shooting in the
first half, as they Falcons opened up a
29-7 halftime lead. Cerritos, seeded #8
in the Southern California Regional
Playoffs, went on to defeat the
#17-seeded Marauders, 55-30 in the third
round of the playoffs, catapulting them
to the State Tournament, which will be
held at the University of the Pacific
starting next Thursday. The win by the
Falcons (27-8) sends them to the Elite
Eight for the first time since 2002 and
fifth time in school history. Antelope
Valley, who knocked off #1-ranked Orange
Coast College in the second round, ends
their season at 21-14.
In their last trip to
the state tournament back in 2002, the
Falcons opened with an 88-58 win over
Foothill College, who will be the team’s
first opponent. Game time for the state
quarter-final game has not been
determined yet. Foothill, the top-ranked
team in Northern California, defeated
Shasta College, 73-63 in the third
round. Cerritos is the
#4-seeded team from Southern California,
and will be paired with the top-ranked
team from the north.
The game started with Cerritos
scoring the first 10 points of the game
and they never looked back. The lead
slowly increased, as the Marauders
struggled mightily from the field, with
the Falcon defense swarming on every
pass and loose rebound. After freshman
guard
Arielle McClellan (Paramount
HS) hit a three-pointer to give
Cerritos a 17-7 lead, the Falcons went
on to hold Antelope Valley scoreless the
rest of the half. In fact, AVC didn’t
score in the final 8:23 of their first
half and scored their first points after
3:56 expired in the second half. By
then, it was a forgone conclusion that
the Falcons would be making the trip
north.
On the night, Cerritos out-rebounded
the Marauders, 59-39, with 23 of those
boards coming on the offensive side. The
Falcons, who only shot 31% from the
field themselves, received seven
offensive rebounds off the bench from
sophomore guard
Colleen Cooley (Paramount HS),
while freshman forward
Mercedes Taylor (Gahr HS)
led the team with 10 rebounds on the
night.
Offensively, only two players scored
in double figures, with sophomore
forward
Genesis Lewis (Paramount HS)
leading with was with 11 points and six
caroms, while McClellan finished with 10
points and three rebounds. Sophomore
forward
Maltresa Neely (Downey HS)
contributed six points, eight rebounds,
four assists and three blocked shots,
with freshman guard
Rachel Butler (Calvary Chapel
HS) adding five points, four
rebounds and four assists off the bench.
Brittney Lloyd led Antelope Valley with
nine points, all of which came
consecutively in the second half.
