In their final tune-up before the South Coast Conference Tournament, the Cerritos College women's water polo team split their two games at the Santa Barbara City College Halloween Tournament on Saturday. The Falcons (9-16), who will go into the conference tournament next weekend at El Camino College as the #3-seed, opened with an 11-10 overtime win over Los Angeles Valley College and then suffered a 14-8 loss to the host Vaqueros, who are ranked #3 in the state. Cerritos will open the conference tournament facing #6-seeded Rio Hondo, who the Falcons defeated, 15-3 in their conference match.

In the win over LA Valley, Cerritos battled back from an early 5-2 deficit, while the teams were tied all the way through to 9-9 in the fourth quarter. The Monarchs took a 10-9 lead with 2:08 remaining until sophomore Miranda Alvarez (Schurr HS) scored on a power play goal with 10 seconds left to send the game to overtime. Neither team scored in the first overtime, while sophomore All-American Angelina Romero (Schurr HS) scored her fifth goal of the game with 1:43 remaining in the second overtime to win the game.

Both Alvarez and Romero each scored five times, while the two combined for five assists, with sophomore Jillian Crockett (Cerritos HS) assisting on a team-high four goals. Romero was dominant on both ends of the pool, as she posted five steals and drew five exclusions, with the team scoring on three of them. Freshman goalkeeper Alyssa Sorrells (Bell Gardens HS) turned away 12 shots to keep the team in the game.

A fast first quarter against the Vaqueros allowed the Falcons to open a 4-2 lead, with Romero accounting for three of the goals. But a 7-2 change in power in the second quarter put Santa Barbara City in front 9-6 heading into intermission. Cerritos could not add to their goal total in the third quarter, with the Vaqueros scoring three more times, and went on to account for eight straight goals in the game to get out to a big lead. Romero scored six of the team's goals, with Alvarez assisting on five of them.

By the end of the weekend, three Cerritos players have moved their names up to the top of the state leaderboard. Romero, who scored 11 goals on the day, now sits in second place in the state with 93 goals, while that total is currently the eighth best in school history. As for Alvarez, she is currently second in the state with 65 assists and second with 49 exclusions drawn. The assist total is also the fifth best in a Falcon season so far. Sorrells moved into first place in the state with 266 saves, while that total is just five shy of breaking the school's single-season record of 270 set by Sharon Ku in 2012.