The Cerritos College women’s basketball team won its away conference match against L.A. Southwest College 80-72.

The players were able to keep their opponent down to only scoring 12 points in the first half, while the Falcons scored 36 points.

Throughout the second half of the game, it began to pick up as L.A. Southwest scored 60 points in the second half while Cerritos only scored 44 points.

Fortunately the Falcons overcame and brought in the win by eight points.

Every player in the lineup scored at least two points throughout the game.

This was the first game the women’s basketball team played since its 68-47 loss against El Camino College on Feb. 2. The team had a week off until this game.

Head coach Trisha Kozlowski expanded on what the team focused on, “Consistency. Which from our first half to second half, showed our lack of consistency, but those are some of the three best practices that I’ve seen us have.

“So, I think we came out and played that way in the first half and [L.A. Southwest] knocked down some shots, hats off to them. [L.A. Southwest] played really hard in the second half, they figured out our half court trap.

“We gotta be a little more consistent and have more composure in the second half when they start to press us.”

Kozlowski explained her thoughts on how the team was able to keep the opponent at such a low score in the first half, “Having an attacking attitude, being disciplined and hanging our hat on defense.”

Kozlowski ended with, “A win is a win, we came out and got a win.–We’re still in solid second place in our conference. I wanted to work on our consistency, but at the end of the day, we came here to get a win and that’s what we do.”

Freshman guard No. 24 Serena Rendon elaborated on her individual performance, “I’m back. I did a lot better than my previous games. I think today I played my game.

“This game I was just more involved, I was more aggressive, and I was scoring. In the previous games I haven’t been playing aggressive.”

Serena Rendon took the week long break to focus on her defense. “If it’s not my game on offense, I’m focusing on defense.”

Serena spoke on the team’s overall performance, “The first half we did really well, we executed and we were composed. We definitely won the 50-50.

“The second half we weren’t composed, we were rushing everything, we kept turning the ball over… it just wasn’t a good half and we were fouling way to much.”

Serena Rendon ended the game with 24 points, 10 rebounds and six steals.

Freshman guard No. 20 Jesenia Rendon believes she performed alright. “I was getting frustrated, but it was only just at the refs.”

During the break Jesenia Rendon focused on handling her frustration better. “I do not handle frustration [well].

She said, “I try to keep it all together,” Jesenia also mentioned what she plans to do to get over her in-game frustration, “I think progress over it, but that’s just the main goal and as well to limit my turnovers.”

Jesenia expanded on the team’s second half performance, “Honestly, even though we shouldn’t blame the refs, it was really the refs because I’m pretty sure– like more than half their [L.A. Southwest’s] points are going to be free throws and [the refs] were calling fouls that weren’t fouls, it wasn’t equal.”

She continued, “We need to handle the pressure better no matter if the point guard isn’t in. If we break the press, then we should know to bring it back out.

“We weren’t doing that because once we broke the press we were just shooting it and going back down and fouling,” Jesenia said.

Jesenia Rendon finished the game with 14 points, five rebounds and five assists.

Sophomore forward No. 15 Alexis Clark feels like she played pretty good. “If I had to choose a half where I did better, I would choose the first half,” said Clark.

Clark described her team’s performance,”Everybody was on the same page and we just played well together with the five that we had in.”

She also said, “Staying together [helped] because it was getting kind of frustrating with the other team talking trash and the refs just not calling anything the second half.

“It was frustrating, but we kept talking each other down from having tantrums and stuff.”[sic]

During the break Clark says the team focused on finishing and she personally focused on shooting threes and free throws. She ended the game against L.A. Southwest with 16 points, seven rebounds and two assists.

Clark hopes to go into the next game more composed under the pressure.

“I’m expecting us to defend our home court, [with] the same energy and effort and [I’m] expecting us to work on composure a little bit. We’ve raised the bar, if we play how we practice, we should be just fine,” said Kozlowski.

The Cerritos College women’s basketball team has its next conference match at home against L.A. Harbor on Feb. 14 and it will also be a night honoring the sophomore players for their last year with the team.