Cerritos women’s basketball team lost their home opener to the San Diego Mesa Olympians 67 – 49, after struggles on both sides of the ball.

The Falcons were in the game in the first half as they had it tied 14-14 at the end of the first quarter and were only down by four going into halftime 30-26.

The second half is where they let it get away as they were only able to put up 23 points in that half compared to San Diego Mesa’s 37 points.

The issue of points came about as the Falcons only shot 27% from the field.

“They went on a run in the fourth quarter, and we only shot 27% to their 34% and that was really the game,” Head coach for Cerritos, Trisha Kozlowski said.

Falcons freshman guard Salma Garcia, who led the Falcons with 15 points, said the team needs to shoot more in practice to improve on this issue.

Freshman Guard Genesis Salinas for Cerritos added to what the team has to do to get better shots off screens, “We’re going to have to make sure to cut really well and get open off the cut and really push off our man.”

Another issue Cerritos faced in this loss was rebounding with only 27 boards while San Diego Mesa had 57 boards.

Of San Diego Mesa’s rebounds, 18 were offensive rebounds giving them more opportunities to put points on the board.

“We got killed on the boards,” Kozlowski stated.

“You gotta be gritty because we’re not growing 4 or 5 inches,” Kozlowski said. “We have great game plans once we settle into that, and then we got to be mentally tough and be ready to be physical at this level,” Kozlowski added as to what the team has to do to improve on their rebounding.

Garcia added to how this team has to be gritty in order to get more boards.

“It’s got to be like within ourselves just to know that we’re not the tallest team so in order for us to get our first win, we have to keep going after it and having that intensity so it’s just within us,” Garcia said.

More opportunities were given to the Olympians with 31 attempted free throws and the Olympians making 80% of them.

“We gave them too many free throws so we got to adjust to that,” Kozlowski said.

The Falcons were able to force a lot of turnovers against San Diego Mesa having 22 turnovers which was a bright spot for Cerritos in this game.

“I thought we played really good defense off the bench. We just got out of our control at the end,” Salinas shared.

Garcia, who was coming off the bench, was a big contributor to the turnovers and got four steals.

“I can just trust my teammates knowing that they’re gonna get to their spots so I can take a chance a 50/50 getting the steal, also trusting myself, knowing if I don’t get it, I can recover,” Garcia voiced.

Kozlowski said the team needs to stay aggressive on both ends for the rest of the season.

The Cerritos women’s basketball team will have their next game at Saddleback on Nov. 6.