Saying that the Cerritos College men’s water polo team is streaky would indeed be accurate. After all, it opened the season with a loss, won four in a row, lost three straight and it has won four in a row again.
The Falcons will try to make it a season-best five-game winning streak when they host Trade Tech on Wednesday at 3 p.m. in a South Coast Conference match. Cerritos currently is 1-1 in conference play. The women’s team will play Trade Tech at home on Wednesday at 4 p.m.
Cerritos’ men’s team won nonconference matches over Southwestern (15-12) and Santa Monica (14-11) before beating both Los Angeles Valley (14-12) and El Camino (14-4) at the Cypress Mini-Tournament this past weekend.
Freshman Daniel Garcia, who leads the team with 51 goals in 12 games, scored four goals in the Southwestern and Santa Monica contests. Bryan Brown had a team-best five goals against Santa Monica and he is second on the team with 27 goals. Charlie Eldridge also added four goals against Southwestern.
Sophomore Duje Kaliterna has shined defensively this season. Both he and Marcus Alvarez have pitched in with 10 goals, while Kaliterna had six steals in back-to-back games last week. He leads the team with 35 steals, while David Marcato had 19 steals and Garcia had 14 more.
Goalie Kris Nordbak has averaged 8.4 saves in the cage over 10 matches this season.
WOMEN’S WATER POLO
The Falcons enter Wednesday’s match with Trade Tech losing all 14 of their matches this season. However, the team did show some offensive improvements over the last two matches.
Cerritos scored just 22 goals in their first 12 matches, a 1.8 goals per game average. In losses to Ohlone and American River during the final two games it played at the Cuesta Tournament, the Falcons scored 11 goals. They lost 13-6 to Ohlone and 15-5 to American River. They opened the two-day tournament by losing 16-0 to Diablo Valley and 22-1 to Golden West during the first two days in San Luis Obispo.
Bethany Emmons (10 goals), Megan Robles (nine goals), and Audrey Medico (seven goals) have done the balance of Cerritos’ scoring. Jessica Meili and Jill Strickland each have four goals.
Jazmin Sanchez, Helida Ortiz, Medico and Meili are among four who have played goalie for the team. While the offense is averaging 2.4 goals per game, the defense is giving up an average of 14.4 goals (201).
