With one game left to play in the regular season Cerritos now knows that it will at least have a share of the conference title, following a 81-70 win over El Camino Wednesday, Feb. 17.
“We don’t want to share a league title with Long Beach City. We’ve got some bigger goals: we’d like to get to 20 wins; we’d like to go 8-0 in conference. We have this opportunity to do that and that’s our goal regardless of the opponent,” head coach Russ May said.
The team will have its opportunity to go for 20 wins and 8-0 in conference play Friday, Feb. 19 when Long Beach City comes to visit for the annual Coachers vs. Cancer game.
In the first meeting of the season against El Camino May argued that he felt the game got a little chippy as the Warriors are a struggling team.
“[The Warriors] were really motivated to play us and I thought they played really hard, I give them a lot of credit,” May said.
This time around El Camino hung around with Cerritos not allowing Cerritos to gain much of a lead.
Heading into halftime Cerritos was only up by six points, that was until freshman guard Luis Medearis drained two three-pointers to run the lead to double digits.
“Luis has put in a lot of work, he’s very professional about how he goes about his practices and his pregame. He’s earned the trust because he’s put in the work,” May said.
Medearis has not been shy when it comes to shooting the ball the entire season however, May hasn’t had a problem with it. In fact he has encouraged his aggressive ways.
“He just lets me play. I don’t really have to play out of role or anything like that. He puts me in the right position to do what I do best and that’s score,” Medearis said.
Medearis led the team with 18 points on the night.
Sophomore forward Marquise Scott started for the third straight game but only logged four minutes of playing time.
Additionally, sophomore forward Jamal Watson only played 11 minutes.
May’s reasoning? Matchups.
“It’s just a matchup thing and what we feel comfortable with. The guys have performed well in practice, you just never know,” May said.
With the last game of the regular season being against the rival Vikings, the Falcons are sure not to get to ahead of themselves heading into playoffs.
“It would mean a lot to beat [LBCC]. Winning a conference title is a big thing for me personally and our team. Its just one big stepping stone towards getting to our [ultimate] goal which is a state title,” Medearis said.
