Forward Rose Boatner scored 15 points and pulled down 17 rebounds, and the Cerritos College women’s basketball team used an early first-half run to beat the visiting Long Beach City College Vikings, 70-53, and clinch first place in the South Coast Conference South Division on Wednesday night.

Long Beach’s Jocelyn Arce led all scorers with 19 points, while April Perry scored a team-high 17 for Cerritos. Freshman Jazlyn Afusia added 13 points and five assists for the Falcons as well in the victory.

The win on sophomore night leaves Cerritos at the top of the standing in the southern division 5-1 (18-11 overall), and it will learn which team it face in the playoffs on Monday when the seeding is announced.

The Falcons came out firing and jumped out to an early lead courtesy of a barrage of 3-pointers, rendering the Vikings’ zone defense mostly ineffective. By the midway point of the first half, Cerritos had already built a 23-9 lead and hit five 3-pointers.

“Coach prepared us for the zone during practice, so we were ready,” explained sophomore Adria Jackson.

(The 3-point shot) is our first option a lot of the time anyways,” she added.

Fellow sophomore Maleta Daughtery agreed. “Everyone on the team is real confident in their shot, so we don’t even hesitate to take that shot if we have it,” she said.

Long Beach (18-11) was able to take advantage of a stagnant Cerritos offense and claw its way back to within nine points with 3:00 left in the half, but would come no closer.

Cerritos exploded in the second half with a 12-2 run, steadily building its lead by focusing more on fast breaks whenever possible.

“We always want to run,” said head coach Karen Welliver. “(The players) like it when we run, and I like it when we run, so it was fun to see,” she added.

When Cerritos wasn’t draining 3-pointers or converting fast-break layups, Boating was there to clean up the misses. She followed up her previous performance of 10 offensive rebounds and 25 total, with five offensive boards and 17 total.

“Rose has been a rebounding machine! She’s worked real hard down there for us,” exclaimed Welliver.

The Vikings, led by Raven Seller’s 17 points, seven rebounds, and four assists, away pleased with their performance.

“We battled well against a top team and fought extremely hard,” said Vikings head coach Reggie Ellis.

“The team played really well. We’ve had a rocky season with some issues, but tonight I think we executed really well,” he added.

Although Long Beach’s season is over, Cerritos will begin postseason play on Wednesday against an opponent to be determined in Monday’s seeding.

Until then, “we just need to stay hungry, stay focused, and not hold anything back,” said Daughtery about how to prepare for the playoffs.