Competing at the Whittier Tournament for their first competition of the season, the Cerritos College men's water polo team split their first two games. The Falcons (1-1) opened with a 10-7 win over Occidental College and then suffered an 18-5 setback at the hands of the host Poets. The team will open South Coast Conference play on Wednesday when they travel to El Camino College for a 4:30 p.m. match.

Cerritos vs. Occidental: The Falcons opened up quickly against the Tigers by taking a 4-1 lead after the first period on goals by four different players. In the match, Cerritos would end up with four players accounting for a pair of goals, with sophomore goalie Matthew Contreras (Montebello HS) posting 14 saves. With the score 5-4, sophomore Salvador Orozco (Montebello HS) posted his first goal of the day with 1:44 left in the first half. After Oxy got to within a single goal again, Orozco recorded his second goal, with sophomore Bryan Santis (La Serna HS) opening the fourth period with a goal to give Cerritos a 9-5 advantage.

Orozco, Santis and freshmen Raul Muniz (Colbach HS, Mexico) and Arturo Ortuno (Universidad La Salle, Mexico) all scored twice for the Falcons, with sophomore Mark Arroyo (Schurr HS) recording a pair of steals.

Cerritos vs. Whittier: Unable to contain the scoring outbursts by the Poets, the Falcons quickly fell behind 4-2 after the first period and 8-3 at intermission. It was a 10-5 game in the second half, by Whittier went on to score the final eight goals of the game to put it out of reach. Santis led the team with three goals, with Muniz and freshman Dylan Sun (Cerritos HS) both recording a pair of steals. Contreras surrendered 10 goals and made three saves, while sophomore Jason Curiel (El Rancho HS) came on and made three saves and allowed eight goals.