Men's Water Polo: No. 1 Long Beach rallies to beat Cerritos 14-9

The state's top-ranked Long Beach City College men's water polo team came from behind to defeat No. 7 Cerritos College by a final score of 14-9 in a key South Coast Conference game in Norwalk on Wednesday. With the win, the Vikings improved to 7-1 overall and 2-0 in conference play.

Long Beach quickly jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter after goals by freshmen Andrew Reynolds (Los Alamitos HS) and Ikko Saito (Cerritos HS) and sophomore Jason Lee (Cerritos HS).

The Falcons answered with a rally of their own as they scored five straight goals. Cerritos led 6-5 with 2:39 left in the second quarter after a goal by Michael Hanna.

But the Vikings closed out the half with goals by freshman Blake Grove (Newport Harbor HS) and Lee to jump ahead 7-6 and take back the lead for good. LBCC outscored Cerritos 7-3 in the second half to hang on for the win.

Reynolds and Saito both scored four goals to lead the Vikings' offensive attack while Lee posted two goals.  Freshman Lazar Andric (Herceg-Novi, Montenegro) and sophomore Akio Saito (Cerritos HS) combined to total 15 saves in goal for Long Beach.

Albert Kim and Miguel Garcia each scored twice to lead Cerritos (7-8, 1-2 SCC).

Long Beach returns to action on Saturday (Oct 5) when it travels to NCAA Division I Pepperdine University to take on the Waves in an exhibition game. 

Photo by Chris Ruiz