Cerritos Shot in Last 3 Seconds Pins Defeat on El Camino, 64-63

The El Camino College basketball team knew going into Saturday’s South Coast Conference game against Cerritos College that a victory in the Falcons’ loud, fan-crazy Norwalk gym wouldn’t be easy.

After all, the Warriors had won there only once, Cerritos eight times.

On Saturday, El Camino (20-7, 5-2 in SCC play) almost pulled out another victory, but with three seconds left to play, an in-bound pass to Cerritos’ Andre Edwards led to his hook shot that gave the Falcons (23-3, 4-2) a 64-63 victory.

“We just didn’t get back in position,” said a disappointed Coach Ron McClurkin, whose Warriors had edged Cerritos by two points earlier this season. “We were supposed to have three guys in the key, and we didn’t. That’s the bottom line.”

The win put Cerritos, whose league losses are to Pasadena and El Camino, in second place in the SCC. El Camino remains in first.

“I think we played pretty well,” McClurkin said. “It was just some key moments. They didn’t do what they were supposed to do at key moments, and that made the difference.”

As usual, El Camino got off to a slow start. The Warriors played a sloppy, if physical, first half that featured poor shooting from the start.

El Camino had scoreless droughts of two and three minutes, and at one point missed six consecutive shots, all easy ones under the bucket.

The Falcons’ shooting wasn’t much better, but they took a 33-28 lead into the locker room at the half, with guard Wayne Gipson scoring 11 of his game-high 15 points.

After trailing for the first 10 minutes, the Warriors had managed to tie the game at 15 on David Keeter’s jump shot from the right side of the key. Cerritos, however, regained the lead about a minute later when forward Corey Jennings hit a 3-pointer.

The Warriors’ scorers were led by Keeter, who had 13 points. Point guard Van Myers and forward Kelvin Harris each had 10, and Kevin Mixon and Zlatco Josic each added eight.

El Camino will end SCC play on Wednesday when it hosts Long Beach City College, the only other team with an SCC victory over the Warriors this season.