The first 20 minutes of their South Coast Conference men's basketball game against Los Angeles Southwest College were nothing like the final 20 minutes. Cerritos College was mired in a shooting slump and it resulted in a 26-26 tie at intermission at The Aviary on Friday. But in the second half, the Falcons scored 59 points and pulled away for a convincing 85-67 win. Cerritos (15-9, 8-2) will travel to El Camino College on Wednesday for a 7:00 p.m. conference game.

The high-flying offense scored points in bunches against the Cougars (5-19, 2-8), who tried to keep up with their outside shooting. However, the Falcons had several weapons, as sophomore guard Jordan Reise (Huntington Beach HS) hit a trio of three-pointers in the second half, with sophomore forward TJ Traylor (Dominguez HS) accounting for 14 points and freshman guard Micah Winn (Crenshaw HS) adding 12 points.

When Cerritos wasn't burning the nets with their outside shots, whey were running a pattern in the floor with their fast-break offense. After a trey from Reise put the Falcons up by nine points (40-31) with 16:02 left, Traylor, Winn and freshman guard Austin Pope (Burbank HS) scored points in bunches to open up a 26-point lead late in the game.

The Falcons converted 20-of-31 shots from the field in the second half, en route to their 59-point outburst. The trio of Traylor, Reise and sophomore center Jarion Henry (Kimball, TX HS/Trinity Valley, TX CC) all finished the night with 15 points, with Henry also contributing 10 rebounds, five assists and three blocked shots. Traylor and Reise each pulled down six rebounds. As for Pope, he had 11 points, 10 rebounds an four blocked shots, while Winn scored all 12 of his points in the second half.

Off the bench, freshman Josh Bell (Long Beach Wilson HS) returned to the lineup from an injury and scored five points with five rebounds. Antwujae Sims led LA Southwest with 20 points.

Photos by Daryl Peterson