The Cerritos College women’s basketball team cruised through the first round of the playoffs with an impressive 78-58 victory at home Saturday against Santa Monica.
Tiffany Amete led the way for the falcons in scoring and rebounds with 14 points and eight rebounds as the Falcons improved to 20-11 for the season.
The Falcons had faced Santa Monica earlier in the year and won 89-62.
As usual this season the Falcons displayed great balance with both scoring and defense. The Falcons had only two player’s score in double figures, but all 12 players who got into the game scored.
Even freshman guard Wendy Ramirez who played most of the second half in place of Marci Wong had 3 points which came in at the last second of the game after being scoreless for the entire 15 minutes she played.
Tiffany Amete led the way for the falcons in scoring and rebounds with 14 points and eight rebounds as the Falcons improved to 20-11 for the season.
Jacquana Young led Santa Monica 17-15 with 15 points and 5 rebounds. The corsairs never seemed to get into a rhythm offensively and seemed bewildered defensively unable to neutralize Amete Wong and Nicole McCarthy who nailed 2 key 3 pointers in the second half for Cerritos.
The tough guard play of April Lenssen also contributed to Cerritos successful ball distribution and defense.
The one weak point to the near perfect game for Cerritos, was foul trouble falcons were in the double bonus for two thirds of the second half and 4 minutes of the first.
The Corsairs had 23 turnovers in hte game. Cerritos only committed 15 turnovers in the game.”15 was out goal” Coach Linda Wellerman said about one of their goals coming into the game.
The Falcons, ranked No.13 in the playoffs, used a bludgeoning defense to take a 40-23 lead at the half over the No.20 Corsairs
The Falcons were never seriously challenged in the game as they were up by at least 20 points for the majority of the night.
The Falcons will play at fourth seed Orange Coast College who had a bye for the first round of the state playoffs Wednesday.
The Falcons defeated Orange Coast earlier in the season in a low scoring game 64-44. But all records are thrown out the window whenplayoffs roll around.
