The Cerritos College Falcons men’s basketball season tipped off on Saturday Nov. 2 with a loss against the Chaffey College Panthers by a score of 92-87.
Cerritos College will be returning six players from their roster a year ago, Darron Henry, a sophomore point guard was asked about the new leadership role of returning players this season.
“Definitely I think the biggest thing, just being there as that familiar face to guys, showing guys the way, kind of giving them a good role model, and just being that guy, anybody can talk to,” said Henry.
Momentum was the story of the first half, and Chaffey had the lion share of it after tip-off building themselves a 16-7 lead.
Sophomore guard, Uriyah Rojas, led the early run from Chaffey scoring 9 of the first 16 points and finishing with 22 points total after the first half.
The Falcons three-point shooting helped them build their way back into the game as they would make three out of their next four to bring the game level.
Two of those three-point shots came from sophomore, Andrew Mata, who came off the bench and would finish the first half 4/8 from three with 12 points.
“Yeah I feel good, just filling my role on this team to knock down shots, we have a lot of good athletic guys that can get in the lane so when they need someone to kick out, I’m usually the guy and I got to knock it down. . .” said Mata.
Cerritos would take the lead after the early Chaffey run and not give it back for the rest of the half utilizing strong rebounding to prevent second chance opportunities and sinking 9 out of 11 free throws giving Cerritos a 51-45 lead going into the half.
As the second half started, the Panthers began to put together better offensive possessions and slowly closed up the lead that Cerritos had built, tying it 54-54 with 16:42 left in the half.
“I think we broke down in the second half, we lost our discipline in the second half and that cost us the game. . .committed stupid fouls and a technical foul that’s the difference in the game” said Head Coach Russ May.
Chaffey would start to grow their lead down the stretch thanks to some untimely turnovers from the Falcons as well as their own shooting beginning to pick up.
The free throw line also made a very big difference during the second half as Chaffey would drain 14/15 attempts from the line while Cerritos would shoot a rough 4/10 from the charity stripe.
Coach May stated, “Again just not going there, concentrating. We missed our last six free throws, you can’t win big games if you’re doing that.”
The Panthers began to pull away from Cerritos leading 86-79 with just a 1:30 left on the clock forcing Cerritos to begin intentionally fouling.
When asked about improvements that need to be made Coach May stated “ Self discipline, awareness, and you know being committed to doing the little things correctly and once we do I think we have a chance to be really really good.”
Cerritos will look to bounce back during their next game against Ventura College at the Irvine Classic Nov. 7.
