Long Beach City College men’s basketball sophomore guard Brandon Cerda posted 15-points in an attempt to help give the Vikings a victory over Cerritos, but ultimately came up short, losing 71-97.
LBCC fought with their defense and made their shots throughout the first half of the game.
Brandon Cerda scored the most points in the game but LBCC still struggled to keep up with their opponents.
Some of the players believe that there was a lack of defense which caused the game to end this way.
“I think we just need to be better at defense, they [Cerritos] played really well, felt like they made every shot, so we really need to work on defense,” Brandon Cerda said.
“We lack defense, we are not playing hard enough, if we are not playing hard on defense then will not not translate better on offense, so we have to pick it up in that area,” Franklyn Chambers, team captain said.
With the opponent coming into the game aggressively, LBCC had to work really hard to match them.
First half of the game ended with the score of 31-57, giving the Vikings a lot of work to do for the rest of the game.
During the second half, LBCC came back stronger with making more shots and working harder with their defense.
This causes the opponent team to foul, giving the Viking more opportunity to shoot more free throw shots.
At the end of the game, the Vikings missed passing the ball and missing their shots.
The game ended with the Vikings losing against Cerritos with the score of 71-97.
Chambers has hope that the team will perform better in their upcoming games as long as they improve their defense.
“Yeah, as their team captain I’ll always encourage my guys and expect us to do great, if we do good on defense then our offense will take care of the rest,” said Chambers.
The Vikings will now be facing an away game against L.A. Harbor on Wednesday Feb. 14 at 5 p.m. giving them a chance to improve before regionals.