Bracket
On the strength of their season schedule and third place finish in the South Coast Conference, the Cerritos College women's water polo team has been seeded #8 for the Southern California Regional Playoffs. The Falcons (14-12), who are hosting the tournament on November 8-10, will be the first game on Thursday at 9:00 a.m. when they take on #9-seeded San Diego Mesa College. The winner will take on #1-seeded Fullerton College on Friday. This will be the first meeting of the season for Cerritos against the Olympians (16-9), who are the champions of the Pacific Coast Conference.
The Falcons, who have a 2-8 record this season against Southern California teams that advanced to the post-season, will be facing an San Diego Mesa team that went 1-7 against playoff teams.
Cerritos is led by freshman Kate De La Mora (Schurr HS), who has 83 goals on the season, while freshman Carolina Medrano (Schurr HS) has accounted for 55 goals, 33 assists and 38 steals on the year. Defensively, freshman Mayra Olivas (Montebello HS) has recorded a school-record 103 steals, to go along with 44 goals and 31 assists, while sophomore Lizbeth Gomez (Schurr HS) to add to her school-record 80 assists, while she has also produced 38 goals and 57 steals. Olivas and Gomez lead the state in their respective record-breaking categories. Sophomore goalkeeper Dulce Medina (Paramount HS) has played every minute in the cage this year and has recorded 186 saves.
As for the Olympians, they are led by Imperial Espinoza, who has found the back of the net 95 times, which ranks fifth in the state, while she also leads the team with 69 steals. Accounting for 55 goals, 36 assists and 39 steals this season is Carly Lupien, with Ashley Greeven also a scoring threat with 39 goals. In the cage, Kira Hamrick has seen most of the action and has turned away 120 shots.