Pete Moye’
Sports Button

After winning its second game against Cuesta College, the Cerritos College women’s water polo team went 1-1 at the Pasadena City College Tournament on Friday.

The loss ended the team’s eight-game winning streak.

Orange Coast College defeated the Falcons in the first game by a score of 8-3, making it the team’s second loss of the season.

The Falcons came back the second game to beat Cuesta College 10-8.

Cerritos College Head Coach Sergio Macias felt overall that the team had an off day.

“I tried to stress the importance of the game against Orange Coast. I think if we would have won that game it would have guaranteed us a top-six seat for playoffs.”

The Falcons missed 17 out of 20 of their shoots attempts against Orange Coast.

“There is no excuse on how bad we played this morning. Orange Coast executed on our mistakes,” Macias said, “but we’re not scared to play them a second time.”

Macias added, ”Every game is big at this level, every game has an effect in our seating for playoffs.”

Sophomore utility Shelby Gleason stated that the lack of effort cost them the game.

Gleason had six steals in the second game against Cuesta College.

“In the second game we tried adding a lot of communication,” she said, “and we talked before the game and we knew we had to step it up.”

Gleason believes that Orange Coast was one of the more difficult teams because they are more skilled and have better swimmers.

Sophomore utility Stephanie Tuning added that the team improved their defense in order to beat Cuesta.

Tuning had nine steals and 14 turnovers in the first game against Orange College.

“We kept them [Cuesta College] even, whereas in the first game we gave up on defense.”

Tuning added that she believes that she led the defense better in the second game.

“Defense always wins the game,” Tuning said.

Macias believes there was an increase in intensity from the players in the second game against Cuesta.

Freshman goalie Sharon Ku had eight saves against Cuesta College.

Freshmen attacker Sarah Aguayo and utility Yuridia Vela along with sophomore Adriana Rodriguez each had three goals against Cuesta.

Macias believes that the team played good enough to win during the second game but not to the best of its abilities.

“We’ll take any win possible, but this wasn’t a good win.”

The Falcons will travel to Rancho Cucamonga on Wednesday to take on Chaffey College.

Gleason states that the team will practice harder and fix the mistakes for its encounter with Chaffey.

“Hopefully it’s a much better game,” Gleason said.

The Falcons defeated Chaffey in the first week of October with the score of 14-12.

“If we win that game [against Chaffey] there is a very strong chance we will get the No.1 seat for the [South Coast] conference,” Macias said.