Facing Long Beach City College in the championship game of the South Coast Conference Tournament on Saturday, the Cerritos College women's water polo team suffered a 12-6 defeat. In spite of the loss to the Vikings, the Falcons (19-9) will qualify for the Southern California Regional Playoffs, which get underway next Thursday at Riverside City College. The team, looking for their first 20-win season since 2012, will find out tomorrow where they have been seeded for the playoffs.

Cerritos stayed close to Long Beach through the first half and early into the second half. Trailing, 6-3 in the third period, sophomore Carolina Medrano (Schurr HS) scored on a power play goal with 5:13 left on the clock to draw to within 6-4. But the Vikings would score twice in the next minute until a power play goal by Mia Carbajal (Schurr HS) with 1:35 remaining to made it an 8-5 game.

The Vikings started to pull away and scored four of the last five goals to close out the win. Cerritos was only able to score on six of their 25 shots, with Carbajal leading the team with four goals and three steals. State-leader Amy Cervantes (Montebello HS/East Los Angeles College) assisted on three goals, with Medrano and Carbajal each drawing four ejections against Long Beach City. Freshman goalie April Nuno (Cerritos HS) posted nine saves.