In the first round of the Southern California Regional Playoffs, the Cerritos College men's water polo team needed three overtimes to defeat El Camino College, 15-14. The tournament, which is being played at Orange Coast College, will now see the #7-seeded Falcons (17-12) take on another South Coast Conference rival in the 2nd Round, #2-seeded Long Beach City College. Last Saturday, the Vikings defeated Cerritos, 12-9 in the championship game of the conference tournament. The teams have split their two meetings this season.

With the first 32 minutes unable to decide a winner, the teams went on to play two, three-minute overtime periods. Not only were the Falcons able to overcome an exclusion, they scored the lone goal of the first overtime, as sophomore Tim Robles (Schurr HS) gave the team a 14-13 lead. The Warriors tied the game with five seconds remaining in the second overtime, which sent the game to a third OT, which is a sudden victory format. The first team to score would advance to the second round of the playoffs.

Entering that third overtime, sophomore Roman Ramos (Schurr HS) came up huge by winning the sprint, which gave Cerritos possession of the ball. That led to Robles putting home the game-winner, which was his team-leading fifth goal of the game.

Sophomore goalkeeper Diego Campos (Downey HS) came up with 15 big saves and earned the victory in net. It was a shaky start, as El Camino scored the first three goals of the game, but Campos settled down and turned the Warriors away on numerous chances.

Along with his five goals, Robles was one of four players to assist on a pair of goals, with sophomore Jacob Colon (Schurr HS) registering four assists. Also on offense, freshman Guillermo De La Mora (La Serna HS) scored three times, while the trio of Christian Acosta (Schurr HS), Johan Gaytan (Downey HS) and Isaiah Wright (Whittier HS) each scored twice.