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With head coach Marcus Chinen looking on, Cerritos High junior Cameron Lacorte drives around Amirah Jones of Beaumont High in last Saturday’s CIF-Southern Section Division 3AA second round game. Lacorte scored 19 points and was seven of 15 from the field, including five three-pointers as the Dons took care of Beaumont 68-51. PHOTO BY JASON WATANABE.
February 17, 2025
By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X
Cerritos High head coach Marcus Chinen is quick to remind everyone that no lead early in a game is safe and constantly preaches to his girls that basketball is a game of momentum. But even as the Dons scored the first 11 points of their CIF-Southern Section Division 3AA second round game against Beaumont High last Saturday, the momentum stayed with the hosts for the entire game.
Cerritos went crazy with its perimeter shooting, connecting on 12 of 23 shots from beyond the arc, and junior Cameron Lacorte and sophomore Kalana Nguyen each had 19 points as the Dons maintained a double-digit lead for the final 27:19 of the game in a 68-51 rout. The black and gold will now travel 171 miles, or close to three hours, to Ridgecrest to face Burroughs High on Wednesday in a quarterfinal game.
“Going through all the practices and everything, we keep telling them that no matter what happens, we’re proud of this team,” said Chinen. “Everything that we’ve been through this year as far as people being sick, injured, out for whatever reason, they stuck to everything. Once we got everyone back, and everyone had a chance to play together, then we started to gel. Everyone is starting to see that, and when they’re seeing that, now the confidence is coming.”
“I think our energy to start off was really good and we just had to keep it up,” said Lacorte. “We were all powered up by the crowd and it was a really good run we had.”
The game began with a furious pace as Lacorte, who immediately missed a three-pointer, had one of her four steals and scored just 22 seconds into the contest. The next two baskets were scored by senior Ambar Multani with both assists going to junior Mady Macaraeg. Following a timeout from Beaumont nearly midway through the quarter, Lacorte assisted on Nguyen’s first perimeter basket and 10 seconds later, Nguyen’s steal and subsequent basket made it 11-0.
“We all played together as a team; we all did great as a team,” said Nguyen. “The energy on the bench and the energy in the bleachers…it was really a good game overall.”
Kiyanna Ware scored Beaumont’s first basket at the 3:39 mark, but a trifecta from senior Miya Scammahorn put the Dons up by 12 points and the lead would not dip below 10 points the rest of the game.
Cerritos led 21-10 after the opening quarter and after Chinen called a timeout 25 seconds into the second quarter despite a shot not being taken yet, the Dons reeled off eight straight points and the blowout was in its beginning stages. Cerritos was true on its first four shots of the stanza and its final six shots of the half were three-point attempts, connecting on two.
“We just tell the girls during timeouts, whether it’s their timeout or our timeout, if we can extend the lead, extend the lead, and just play our game,” said Chinen. “And if we play our game and play the right way, then we can extend it.”
The largest lead of the game was 25 points, which came after another steal and basket from Nguyen with 4:13 left in the third quarter and since the 5:23 mark of the second quarter, the lead went south of 20 points four times. Standing at 4’10 ½” tall, Nguyen, who never scored more than eight points last season and had reached at least 10 points six times this season, posted a career-high with her point total against the Cougars. She also had five steals, two assists and two rebounds. Lacorte also had 19 points and has now hit a dozen three-pointers in the past two games.
Cerritos High junior Cameron Lacorte (left) and senior Megan Wallace swarm Laylene Fontes of Beaumont High in the first half of last Saturday’s CIF-Southern Section Division 3AA second round game. Cerritos built a 22-point halftime lead and won 68-51 behind Lacorte and sophomore Kalana Nguyen, who both scored 19 points. PHOTO BY JASON WATANABE.
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“We’re not very focused on three-pointers,” said Lacorte, who stands at 5’7” and is one of the tallest players on the team. “But our coaches encourage us if we’re open to shoot it. And we’re all confident in each other and in ourselves. So today, we did a really good job, and we showed it.”
“That’s really good for us,” said Chinen of the team’s outside shooting. “The one thing is we don’t want to shoot ourselves out of a game. If it’s there, and the girls are feeling it, we all say, ‘green light’.
“They’ve improved on their shooting,” he continued. “Cam was out for a while, then we got her back, and she had to get back in a groove, and I think right now, the groove is happening for her. For Kalana too, she is our floor general and she’s trying to get everybody involved. We also told her she has to look, sometimes, for her shot if she’s feeling it.”
The Cougars, who grabbed 35 rebounds, were led by Amirah Jones (23 points, 12 rebounds) and Ware (11 points, eight rebounds). All five starters had at least a rebound and the bench chipped in with eight points and as many rebounds.
“I really liked how she played,” said Nguyen of Jones. “She’s very aggressive, especially on defense and her rebounding. Playing defense on her was difficult for the size I am, but I felt like our bigs; our post [players] did really well playing against her and our guards. It was difficult, but we fought through it.”
At one point in the season, the Dons were sporting a 5-14 record and had lost their first two 605 League games. Now, they have won seven straight games to get to 15-15, the first time the team has been at the .500 mark since Dec. 12 when it was 4-4. Not only that, but Cerritos has also scored at least 60 points in four straight games and five of its last six contests.
“We give [the players] the tools, they’re the ones who execute everything,” said Chinen. “It’s these girls; they’re the ones that work hard. They’re the ones that get on each other during practices and even outside of practices. They’re on a mission right now and hopefully we can go a few more rounds and see what happens.”
“I think we just all really want it, and we want to go far,” said Lacorte. “So we’re just doing our best to just keep going because we all love each other, and we don’t want the season to end.”
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