The Cerritos College Men’s Basketball team came back home with another “W” on their belt, this time against Compton College. The Falcons won the game 74-62.
Now on a three game winning streak, the win raises their record to 17-4 for the season.
No. 20 Jason Carter, stated with confidence, “If our energy is there from the jump, I don’t see anyone really beating us.”
“We gotta bring the intensity and keep playing the way we played. No more losses, that’s what I’ve been saying. Undefeated in conference and we’re trying to bring a ring to Cerritos.” [sic]
Carter finished the game with nine points and seven rebounds.
Although, he said, “Today was one of my worst games of the season, but I’m just glad we got the win as a team.
“I did what I had to do defensively to get the team to win.”
Head coach Russ May said, “Defensively we played well in the first half.” As the team disrupted Compton’s offense by forcing turnovers that lead to fast break scoring opportunities.
They capitalized on the turnovers they forced on defense with several break-away dunks. Putting a punctuation mark on the fast break.
And putting on an aerial show for the crowd in Compton.
No. 1 Demetrius Thomas, got out on the break many times quickly beating everyone on his way to finishing about four fast break dunks, “I love it, that’s my game every since high school. It felt amazing doing that.”
Thomas had a game high 24 points off the bench, after going for 26 points in the team’s last game at El Camino.
He also added nine rebounds. “That’s nice—I feel good about that,” Thomas said.
Sophomore—Forward Thomas, had it going particularly after halftime, he said—“I came out a little sluggish, then I got a feel for the game.”
No. 1 Thomas passes to No. 20 Carter for the layup pic.twitter.com/nlaTpQvhdh
— Talon Marks SPORTS (@talonmarksports) January 20, 2018
He interacted with the crowd throughout the night, he spoke about the crowd’s influence on his performance saying, “I like that, you know they was chipping away and it just makes me play my game a little bit more sharper. [sic]
“I get into the game even more—it’s all fun and love.”
Cerritos got off to a slow start offensively in the first half. May said, “Offensively we were sloppy and again not passing the ball well.”
May added, “Well we didn’t play very well [in the first half], we turned the ball over way too much and we were just a little casual.”
They began to pickup towards the end of the first half, the final score of that half was 25-16 with Cerritos leading the game.
Cerritos started the second half with a better mindset. They were playing much better offensively and defensively after halftime.
Sophomore—Forward Carter said, “We started off slow, we played down to the level of competition and out of half-time we did way better.
“I gotta bring the energy. When my energy is there the whole team’s energy is there. Gotta be smarter with the ball. We had a lot of turnovers, easy turnovers.”
May said, “We got eight more left and we’ll see what happens.”
They play their next game on Wednesday at home vs Los Angeles Southwest College.
The game will start at 7 p.m., following the Women’s Basketball game which will also be at home against Los Angeles Southwest at 5 p.m.
Check out live tweets from the game here: https://twitter.com/talonmarksports/status/954514593048510464
