The Cerritos College Women’s water polo team continued its superb play by sweeping its first three opponents at the weekend tournament sponsored by San Diego Mesa College.
The Falcons defeated Miramar College, 21-7, Citrus College, 20-6 and earned a well fought victory over Palomar College, 9-7 in their pool play bracket.
In the first game played Friday Sept. 28th, the Falcons defeated host Miramar College 21-7.
A total team effort of 10 players assaulted the Miramar net, spreading the final total of 21 goals around the pool.
Eight Falcon players were able to find the goal against Citrus College in the second game with utility player, Yuridia Vela leading the effort with 7 goals for 7 attempts spread over the four periods.
Lefty, Carla Harvey and utility player, Katherine Gabayeron both contributed 3 goals apiece to defeat the Fighting Owls of Citrus College, 20-6.
Before their 10:15 a.m. game on Saturday against highly-touted Palomar College, head coach Sergio Macias was praising Palomar player Laura Bryant saying, “She is a big player and had a great game against Chaffey.”
Cerritos and Palomar battled the entire game with the outcome in doubt until the end with Palomar scoring a late goal with about 30 seconds left to account for the final score, 9-7.
With several great and hard blocks, Cerritos sophomore goaltender Sharon Ku said of the effort, ”it (the play of Palomar) was something we had to adjust to, seeing that we haven’t played that many teams with such a dominant center, [but] once we got used to it, we definitely showed them water.”
Regarding the last-second goal in the fourth period, Ku stated, “That was something that could have been prevented, but at this point, a win is a win. For now, we know what to work on in the future.”
Laura Bryant from Palomar College spoke about the Cerritos College play and said, “It was hard. They were a good team, they came out really strong, they were not letting us shoot the ball a lot, so that was hard press.”
Bryant added that she “has been playing water polo for four and a half years.”
Head Coach Gubba Sheehy’s of Palomar, who hails from the United States Olympic Silver medalist team of 2000,
commented on her team’s showing, “They (Cerritos) are a good team, they moved a lot and they definitely caught us off guard.”
Playing in the “True Community College” facility at Miramar College, Falcon head coach Sergio Macias said after the victory over the highly touted Comets of Palomar College, “It [was] a great game for us. We knew it was going to be a tough game coming in. Palomar is right now the best team in San Diego.”
“Angelica (Angelica Hernandez, current Falcon lead goal scorer), one of our best defensive players got into foul trouble early and she ended up sitting out a good quarter and a half of this (Palomar) game, Macias said.
Macias quickly added, “But her team [mates] pulled through defensively. We got a good “W” and we’re pretty happy with our performance overall.”
The falcons swept their pool play and had to wait to find out their opponent in the afternoon tournament games.
Cerritos College’s next opponent is Rio Hondo College on Wednesday in the Falcon Swim Stadium at 3:00 PM.
