The Cerritos College men’s basketball team, 12-9 and Mt San Antonio College, 14-10, faced off Wednesday in an inter-conference home game showdown.

The Falcons coached by Gary Cain went into the game with a 3 game winning streak.

This made the team 4-1 and 2-0 in their inter-conference play.

The Mounties coached by Michael Swanegan, came into the game with a 2-3 record out of their last 5 games.

The game began with a quick pace with both teams running fast break points.

The Mounties came out scoring 14 of 32 points in the first 5 minutes of the game.

The Falcons made it a close game scoring point for point with the Mounties and with a late surge Cerritos took a three-point lead into halftime.

The second half proved to be less successful for the Falcons as Mounties took advantage of Cerritos’ mistakes.

The game came down to a breakdown in basics and inability to score for Cerritos with 9 minutes left in the second half.

From there the Mounties put out a three-headed attack which proved to be too much for Cerritos’ spread out offence.

The Falcons went on to lose to the Mounties, 73-61, with a home court advantage.

Cerritos never established a dominant point scorer.

Tezarray Banks scored 9 points and Ronald Banks piled up 8 points and Tony Roberts put up 7points in the first half.

Four other Falcons had points for Cerritos to add to the teams’ 35 points at the half.

In contrast the Mounties had only 4 players with points at the half.In the second half the Mounties took it to the Falcons with 8 more points from Smith and 13 second half points from Dino Wilburn who finished with 21 points.

The Mounties received a good defensive guard performance from Reggie Harmon who finished with 12 points.

Terrence Martin contributed 7 points while Robert Hamilton and Adrian Fletcher each scored 2 points for Mt San Antonio.

The Falcons had 9 players who scored in the second half. Unfortunately, for Cerritos, Marcel Justin was their leader with a total of 5 points.

Tezerray Banks who led the Falcons in the first half was limited with four points in the second half.

Ronald Banks finished the night with 10 points along with Tony Roberts who contributed 7 points, while Matt Reid finished the game with 6 points. Malcohm Heron, Derek Wade, Leonard Ceja, Terrel Hendricks and Harold Fairweather each scored four points for the Falcons.

The Falcons are now 12-10 heading into their Mission Conference southern division schedule.Hersson Preciado