Ashley Flores said that when she heard the name Long Beach City she thought, “Bring it.”

Prior to perhaps the biggest game of the season sophomore forward had a positive attitude.

After the game Wednesday, Feb. 3 she admitted that she wished her team could’ve brought it the way the Vikings did.

Cerritos fell to Long Beach by a final score of 56-46.

“I feel like we weren’t as ready as we should have been. I feel like our intensity wasn’t there in warm-ups and I felt that was our downfall, ” Flores explained.

Flores finished with six points, seven rebounds, a steal and a block.

The team did not look as fluid on offense to begin the game as it did in recent weeks.

Head coach Trisha Raniewicz was very aware of it.

“I said be the aggressor, win the 50/50 battles, loose balls but that’s always a battle. […] Sometimes there are players you have better instincts for the ball, but we have to get after it, I knew it would come down to that,” she said.

In the early going of the first quarter Raniewicz called on two of her role players to be her spark plugs.

“I think it reflects how hard they [Janel Oliver and Sydney Lopez] practice and I think Syd has been great coming off the bench for us and Janel as well,” she said.

Raniewicz even added that this was probably one of Lopez’s best games.

Both sophomores Oliver and Lopez combined for 15 of the 22 bench points for Cerritos.

“I just try to not force things but first get into the flow of the game and then look for my shot and then look for my teammates,” Lopez said.

She finished second in scoring with nine points only behind freshman Allyson O’Brien, who had 10 points.

Another key contributor off the bench was the continued always-ready play of sophomore forward Crystal Lomax.

When Lomax was on the floor the Falcons outscored the Vikings 17-8. In fact Cerritos captured its first lead of the game when she was on the hardwood.

Lomax looked winded at times throughout the game and Raniewicz noticed so she was forced to make frequent changes.

“It’s all about how I feel she can keep it going in terms of sprinting the floor. If she starts jogging that’s when I sub her [out]. And she knows that,” she said.

Lomax felt foul trouble was the reason why her time on the floor was cut short.

“Every player wishes [it] could play more. I was about to back down that’s how I got most of my fouls,” she said.

“My thing was I’m not about to let anybody punk me, that’s why I was on the bench most of the game,” she added.

Lomax finished the night with three points, two rebounds and a steal in just 10 minutes of play.

The Falcons held around with the Vikings for the majority of the game evening heading into the fourth quarter only down by three points.

For the final 3:25 of the contest Cerritos went 1-for-11 from the field and allowed Long Beach to open an insurmountable double-digit lead.

Despite the fold at the end of the game, Raniewicz still remains confident that anything can happen especially with the Feb. 19 season finale against Long Beach City remaining on the schedule.

“We’ll see what happens [Feb. 19]. Anything can happen, I’ve been in this conference a long time, you never know who can get hot on what day,” she said.