On the strength of their 19-10 over El Camino College in the semifinals of the South Coast Conference Tournament on Friday, the Cerritos College men's water polo team will be playing for the championship for the third season in a row. The Falcons (21-8, 5-0), who are the #1-seeded team, will now take on Mt. San Antonio College (21-7, 4-1) at 1:45 p.m. in the finals at Long Beach City College. Cerritos is looking for their first conference tournament championship since 2016 and fourth under head coach Joe Abing. This will be the 14th time he has led his team to the conference tournament championship.

In the first meeting with the Mounties, Cerritos recorded a 13-9 win.

In the win over the Warriors, the Falcons turned a close 3-2 game after the first period into an 11-6 lead at halftime, thanks to eight second period goals. Holding a slim 5-4 lead in the second period, Joshua Lamberton (Glendora HS) scored, followed by a pair of goals from Jacob Colon (Schurr HS) to extend the lead to 8-4 with 3:58 left in the half. Lamberton, Eric Estrada (Cerritos HS) and Silvestre Chavez (Downey HS) all scored before the end of the half to help open up the big lead.

The Warriors scored the first goal of the third quarter, but the Falcons dominated after that by scoring the next seven goals in the period. Lamberton and Roman Ramos (Schurr HS) each scored twice during that run, as Cerritos extended their bench, which allowed six different players to score in the game.

Lamberton led the team with five goals, while Colon posted four goals, with five different players recording a pair of assists. The goalkeeping duo of Diego Campos (Downey HS) and Henry De Luna Pena (Baldwin Park HS) combined for nine saves.