After riding a three-game losing streak to end the regular season at 23-17, the Cerritos College softball team will head to College of the Canyons on Saturday for the first round of the Southern California Regional Playoffs with six honorable players.

Sophomore Crystal Cano, who spent time at third and first, earned All-State Team and First-Team South Coast Conference honors and center fielder Joanna Perruccio also made the First-Team.

Shortstop Jenny Collazo, pitcher Jennifer Navarro and catcher Krystal Purkey earned Second-Team recognition. Second baseman Monique Ramirez received an honorable mention.

Cerritos finished third in the South Coast Conference and is seeded at No. 11 in the Southern California Regional Playoffs. While No.6 ranked College of the Canyons (28-10-1) placed second in the Western State Conference Blue Division.

Cano said, “Our season has been a rollercoaster and we have all agreed to erase the past.

“We have done our job to make it to playoffs. As a team, we’ve decided to flip the page and it’s like a new beginning.”

Head coach Kodee Murray said, “When you go into your postseason, it’s a whole new season. You’ve kind of let everything that has been building up to this point go.

“We’re not sitting and thinking about what has happened; it’s about how much better we are today, putting ourselves in a better spot when we played (the team) this time around.”

The Falcons last met the Cougars on February 20.

That game resulted in an extra-inning 4-3 loss for Cerritos, but Murray believes that this will be a good matchup for the team.

“If we go out and are able to swing the bats like we can, I feel like we’ve got a really good shot against [CotC]. I’m really glad that we paired up with [CotC],” she said.

Murray also believes the team can use its personal pride and resilience to have a successful postseason and learn from the previous losses.

“Pride is believing in ourselves and holding ourselves accountable and stepping up in big moments.”