The Cerritos College women’s basketball team is looking to overcome first half struggles to be succesfull in conference.
The team finished tournament play with a 4-10 record, then lost three of its final four games before conference putting their record at 5-13.
Despite the team’s lack of wins thus far in the season, head coach Trisha Raniewicz remains poised that her team is ready to make a run.
“We have what it takes, we can go out there and compete with anyone in the state, I really believe that,” she said.
So far, the Falcons have played one of the toughest schedules in the state.
They have faced Pasadena, East Los Angeles and Mt. San Antonio, who are all ranked in the top five in Southern California.
Playing some of the best teams in the state has helped to develop the young players on the team.
Freshman forward Alexis Clark said,“We’ve gotten a lot better from where we started, a lot better, and I think we can keep going from their.”
Raniewicz shared her players’ mindset, saying, “I see every single day us getting better on the little things, eventually if we keep that up that’s going to work its way into our win loss record.”
The team will play the first conference game of the season Wednesday, Jan. 18 against EC-Compton who is 6-10 on the season.
Cerritos opened up conference play against EC-Compton last season as well; the Falcons won the game 77-32 in their only matchup last season.
The Falcons’ conference consists of Long Beach, LA Harbor, El Camino, EC-Compton and LA Southwest colleges.
No team in the conference has an overall record better than .500.
“I really believe we can make a push to win the conference,” Raniewicz said.
“Anything can happen during conference, I feel like we have a good shot against any team,” she added.
The Falcons started with 12 players, but will now play the remainder of the season with only eight, seven of which are freshman.
An issue as of late for the Falcons has been performing in the second half.
During the teams games against Pasadnea City and East Los Angeles, the team was unable to continue the first half success into the second.
Freshman guard Angie Ferreira recognizes the issues.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do in the second half […] in the second half we all tire out, we just have to get a little more conditioned,” she said.
Even with a young roster, multiple players on the team have found ways to contribute.
Sophomore guard Kaylyn James is leading the team in scoring with 15 points a game.
Freshman forwards Cystal Rodriguez and Alexis Clark are both averaging more than five rebounds a game and point guard Angie Ferreira leads the team in assists.
“I couldn’t be prouder of them,” said Raniewicz, “I really love how they have come together through adversity.”
Last season the Falcons finished with a 20-11 overall record and 6-2 in conference.
