During the duration of a long, draining college basketball season, emotions were rampant but it’s a lot easier when you have a family you can rely on.
And that is the exact words that describe the Cerritos women’s basketball team. The team lost 58-48 Friday, Feb.27 Irvine Valley.
The loss brought an abrupt ending to what looked like a rather promising season.
“We were competing and the girls fought hard,” said head coach Karen Welliver.
She added, “We were a young team this year and they kept improving. We had some really big wins and we won a tournament,”
With Cerritos being the No. 14 seed and Irvine Valley being ranked No. 3 many people thought the game would be a blowout in terms of competition on the end of Cerritos.
The game was a lot closer than the final tally entails with Irvine Valley taking their first double digit lead with under a minute to go in the game.
Sophomore center Selena Romero believed Cerritos had a valiant chance at stopping Irvine Valley and handing the team their first loss in nearly two months.
Despite not starting, in which coach Welliver only deemed a “team [issue],” Romero still scored 11 of her 17 points in the first half.
“I just knew that this was a big game. I had to do what I had to do to help my team the best way I could. That was the only thing, it was just a regular game for me,” Romero claimed.
Freshmen forward Crystal Lomax, who started in place of Romero scored two points.
In comparison to Romero’s first half, freshmen forward Aissha Baldwin’s first half was not so great.
Baldwin scored just two points and had one rebound.
“I just wanted to win. After the first half everyone was a little nervous or tentative. And I knew I had to step it up,” Baldwin admitted.
Step it up she did, scoring 17 of her game high 19 points in the second half. Baldwin also finished with 6 rebounds.
“She got really aggressive, she really took it to the hole being aggressive. I think because they didn’t have much height when they had to bring in their subs she could kind of dominate them,” Welliver stated.
Despite the attribution that Cerritos had the height advantage and the statistic that showed the Falcons outscoring Irvine Valley 26-14 in the paint.
The Falcons still shot 22 times from beyond the arc. The issue is the fact that only four went through the net. That equates to 18 percent for the game and a miniscule eight percent for the second half.
“It’s just kind of who we are. We almost always do that. We got inside shots and we usually make [more three pointers] than that,” Welliver said.
On the contrary defending their three point shot seemed to be a problem for the Falcons. Irvine Valley shot 8-17 (47 percent) from the three-point line.
“Pretty much they were just making their shots. Their shooters weren’t staying in one place they were moving around and that’s hard to defend,” freshman guard Kennedi Cooper said.
The most intriguing fact about this team and the season as a whole is the fact that there are only three sophomores on the team this year. Two players redshirted. Therefore, 10 freshmen will be returning to compete next year for the Falcons.
“It’s good that we have this team bond, we have all the returning players coming back next year I think it will be good for us,” Cooper said.
Karen Welliver said,“A year of experience makes the biggest difference. We’ll be in a very good situation.”
