By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
For the fourth time since Cerritos High and Whitney High became members of the 605 League, their girls basketball teams faced each other in the league opener, and what was viewed as a potential back and forth battle turned out otherwise. The Dons and Wildcats played a sloppy contest, combining for 35 turnovers for the game and combined to shoot five of 25 from the field in the first quarter.
But when push came to shove, Whitney rallied from six points down late in the first half to outscore Cerritos 24-7 in the third quarter on its way to a 46-35 victory in a contest that featured two lead changes. The Wildcats, who had defeated the Dons the other three times they had met to open league action, now own an 8-5 advantage over their city rivals since the league started in the 2018-2019 season. This was also the third time in those eight wins that Whitney had defeated Cerritos by double digits.
“Honestly, I thought we started off slow,” said Whitney head coach Myron Jacobs. “For us to be a team that averages 59.5 points a game, we definitely started off slow; we missed a lot of layups. I truly thought we were the better team, [but] I just think we kind of shot ourselves in the foot. Going into the second quarter, we went on a drought and didn’t score for a while. I thought in the third quarter we did well [and] in the fourth quarter, we wanted to waste some time.”
Upon arriving back from a three-day tournament in Seattle after Christmas, the Wildcats were back in the gymnasium practicing for Cerritos. But Jacobs said he thought it was best to give the players three days off to relax their legs and get them fresh for this past Tuesday. Whitney’s last game prior to the league opener was on Dec. 28 whereas Cerritos played North Torrance High last Saturday.
The way the game began, you would have thought it would be a high-scoring affair as Whitney senior Haylie Wang connected on a three-pointer 15 seconds in, only to see that countered by Cerritos senior Miya Scammahorn another 15 seconds later. The host Wildcats would lead 8-6 after the stanza and Wang’s offensive putback nearly a minute into the second quarter made it 10-6.
That’s when the Dons turned up their offense and went on 10-0 run with sophomore Kalana Nguyen scoring five of her team-high nine points while junior Cameron Lacorte adding a three-pointer off an assist from Nguyen. But then the momentum went back to Whitney (12-6, 1-0), which closed out the final 2:11 of the half with an 8-3 scoring run.
“I thought Cerritos did a great job responding after we scored a couple of times,” he continued. “But deep down inside, we just knew they couldn’t play four quarters with us.”
Besides the sloppiness and poor shooting early on, both teams had to deal with the officials, who at times looked confused, making the wrong calls on jump ball possessions or missing other calls, drawing the ire from Jacobs and the coaching staff from Cerritos. In fact, Whitney shot eight of 14 from the free throw line while the Dons were 10 of 17 and Whitney was whistled for two more fouls than Cerritos, 18-16.
“Let me just say this for the record…every time we play, there’s never going to be good refs,” said Jacobs. “Refs are uncontrollable; that’s something that you cannot control. It is an uncontrollable situation. When we lost last year, there was controversy about the refs. Did we sit here and make a scene about it? No we didn’t. We took our loss on the chin, and we kept moving. A loss is a loss; a win is a win, and I feel like at some point in time, parents, staff or whoever complains about the refs…we all know the refs are bad. But at the end of the day, you still can’t have over 10 turnovers.”
On the first possession of the second half, Wang scored to put Whitney in front for good at 20-19. It was still a one-point lead before her three-pointer began a stretch of six straight points and 18 of the next combined 21 points over the final 4:39 of the quarter as the Wildcats were running away from Cerritos.
Even though the Wildcats were held scoreless over the final 4:11 of the game, a 17-point lead was too much for Cerritos (5-12, 0-1) to overcome. The final six points of the game were Cerritos free throws with four misses and the Dons had as many field goals as they did free throws. Scammahorn scored six points while Lacorte, senior Ambar Multani and sophomore Jordin Pulley all added five points.
“Cerritos put a fight in the beginning of the game,” said Jacobs. “But like I told my girls, watching film on them and scouting them, we don’t really play that type of defense. It was what we call a throw away defense because we’re not going to use it again. But we thought that was a defense that would create a lot of turnovers and frustrate them and get them to play faster into our system.”
The game also marked the return of former Whitney standout Mady Macaraeg, who was playing her fifth game since becoming eligible. After scoring 42 points in the previous four games, Macaraeg was held scoreless but grabbed five rebounds and had three steals.
“Mady made the choice to go there, and we support her,” said Jacobs. “There is not one person bigger than the program, so it didn’t stop what we wanted to do. There were no ill will feelings. Mady wasn’t even on our scouting report; she wasn’t even someone that we were worried about. We were worried about [freshman Analiyah Coneita] because when you look in the book, that kid was scoring double digits pretty much the last three or four games.”
Wang was dominant as ever, scoring 23 points, pulling down 10 rebounds, collecting four steals along with two assists while sophomore Alyssa So had 15 points, eight rebounds, three steals and two assists. Six other players combined to go four of 12 with 13 rebounds, five steals and three assists.
The Dons will host Pioneer High on Friday, face Rosary Academy on Saturday at Mater Dei High, go to Artesia High on Monday before hosting Oxford Academy on Wednesday. Whitney travels to Artesia on Friday, then hosts Long Beach Poly High on Saturday, goes to John Glenn High on Monday before entertaining Pioneer on Wednesday.
“I’m going to tell you exactly what I told my team,” said Jacobs. “This game was a scrimmage game. We played terrible; we played sloppy, we didn’t play disciplined, we didn’t play the way we need to play. Come Saturday when we play Long Beach Poly, we have to play a better game.”
