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By Loren Kopff
Publisher | Follow X
December 23, 2025
Each season, there seems to be a different storyline when Cerritos High and Gahr High face each other in their annual December city tussle. The 2025 edition of this longstanding rivalry centered around the absence of key returning players for both teams and the lack of healthy players that Cerritos head coach Jonathan Watanabe had on his bench.
The game was competitive for the first 4:36 of the contest before the visiting Gladiators went on a 22-11 run the remainder of the first half and cruised to a 74-46 victory last Thursday night. It was the fifth straight win for Gahr over Cerritos, the second longest streak in the series, third consecutive of the season and pushed its overall mark to 7-4. The 74 points is the most for Gahr over Cerritos since an 89-50 win in 2016. The Gladiators now lead the overall series 21-13 since 1999 and includes seven tournament games.
“I think after the first quarter; from the second quarter on, we played at a high level,” said Gahr head coach Marcus Girley. “We had one or two more games where we kind of had that similar intensity. I think we had a lot of easier shots; we started out running to get into transition. I told the kids the hardest thing about these games is the crowd. You’re playing against the crowd more than the team on the court. I think that first quarter, you could feel that energy where the kids were quite uneasy and unsure of themselves, but we settled in.”
“To be honest, it’s just another game,” said Cerritos head coach Jonathan Watanabe. “I know there’s a lot of hype around it because it’s Cerritos-Gahr. When we were league schools competing, it was a lot different; there was a lot more at stake. But this is a good, competitive game. You need rivals because rivals help you to get better.”
A three-pointer from Cerritos junior Jeremiah Ju tied the game at 5-5 and on the ensuing possession, freshman Jace Ribac had a steal and scored to give the Dons their first lead. After a basket from Gahr sophomore Bryce Titus tied the contest, Cerritos scored the next six points before the Gladiators responded with their own 6-0 run to end the quarter.
Cerritos again held a one-possession lead in the opening seconds of the second quarter but after that, it would be all Gahr. Senior Makhi Montgomery jump started a 9-0 run with a basket with the assist going to sophomore Xavier Brown, and ended with back to back baskets from Titus, an up and coming star for the blue and gold.
“Because we’re still a young team, we are at times limited on momentum, and that was a big momentum play,” said Girley. “We get out, and we run; anytime our bigs get to touch the ball, they’re going to get 10 times better. We are talking about sharing the ball, and when everybody touches the ball, everybody feels good, and now we’re willing to do those extra effort plays.”
To compound the issue of the 9-0 run for Cerritos, it went nearly five and a half minutes without scoring in the stanza and the lack of height was catching up to the Dons. All five starters for Gahr stand anywhere from 6’0”-6’4” and Montgomery, who came off the bench, is 6’9” while Cerritos has a pair of 6’2” starters and junior Noah Edwards, who came off the bench, is 6’5”.
“The whole week, we talked about our advantage is our length, and let’s just be long,” said Girley. “If nothing else, let’s be long, let’s create a wall, let’s not foul drivers, let’s make them shoot over our length. They made a couple of them; kudo’s to them. We’ll live with those shots. We just didn’t want to send them to the free throw line because I know they’re a great free throw shooting team.”
“Did you see the height difference,” joked Watanabe. “I think that had a factor in the rebounding edge. I thought we did a pretty good job in the first half of boxing out. But when [the referees] are not calling the push in the backs, they’re just shoving us under the rim, and it makes it really difficult. So, we have a lot of our bigs sitting, and that doesn’t help the situation.”
While Gahr was having its way in the half by shooting 13 of 25 from the field and Titus scoring 11 of the team’s 29 points with half a dozen rebounds, the hosts had a hard time getting in rhythm. They connected on seven of 35 shots before halftime and were outrebounded 26-10.
“Today, in general, we just weren’t making very many shots, and that hurts us,” said Watanabe. “We’re not getting many second opportunities against them. They were taking care of the boards, and they played well. It’s also a battle of attrition; we have a lot of guys out. So, our [healthy] guys have been putting in a lot of minutes.”
The 11-point halftime lead would quickly increase to 18 as Gahr went on a 10-3 run in the first 3:23 of the second half and the Dons would not score consecutive points until midway through the fourth quarter when Gahr was already leading by 30 points.
“To be honest, I try to stay out of the rumor mills,” said Girley of the rivalry. “I know these kids have been going back and forth since summer, and I told them I get it. These guys [went] to kindergarten together [and] nursery school together. But it’s still Gahr versus Cerritos. I try to remind them that we’re not going to win by one person being the hero. Once we settled in the second quarter, we started playing the right way.”
Ju led the Dons with 13 points on five of nine shooting while junior Devon Hardy added eight points and grabbed six rebounds and junior Julian Cabral chipped in with seven points, four rebounds and two steals.
The Dons suited up nine players, which is a far cry from the 12-14 Watanabe has played on any given games in recent seasons. But little by little, he’s getting players back from injuries. Edwards, who had missed the past seven games, came off the bench to score four points and junior Rocco Chua returned after missing the past four games. But Cerritos is still without juniors Noah Lai, who has played only the first four games and Antonious Youseff, both returning players, junior John Cabral, a transfer from Gahr, and sophomore Anay Patel, who has been sidelined the past five games.
“The way we play, it’s tough when we’re limited with our bench,” said Watanabe. “Our style of play is not really conducive to having a limited bench. But again, it is what it is. We’ve pulled up [junior varsity] guys in order to get minutes. So overall, it’s been good for our guys. We just have to get better; I think that’s really what it comes down to. We just have to learn from these experiences and get better. January is coming up pretty quick, and that’s when it’s going to matter.”
All 11 players who suited up for Gahr scored at least one basket, led by Titus (20 points) and senior Kingston Nathaniel (13 points). Titus also had eight rebounds while Nathaniel and sophomore Arien Cruz-Davis each pitched in with seven rebounds with all but one getting a rebound and eight of the 11 had an assist.
“Bryce Titus is unbelievable,” said Watanabe. “I know his dad; I know his uncle growing up in the city of Cerritos [and] I actually played on his uncle’s team. So, his grandpa was my coach for the city of Cerritos. But watching Bryce as a freshman last year…he was a good freshman and this year, he’s just a good player. His evolution of his game has been great and it’s nice to see him evolve as a player. I know he’s at our rival school Gahr, but you cheer for those guys.”
“I thought we had a little bit better balance,” said Girley. “We look to Bryce and Xavier to score [for us], but I also understand they’re sophomores. And I try to get them to simplify their game and make their lives easy until they get their feet underneath them. But just having those three together on the same page makes us that much harder to beat.”
Cerritos got back to its winning ways with a 64-55 conquest over Sunny Hills High last Saturday in the annual G.Y.M.R.A.T. Challenge and visited Sonora High this past Tuesday. The Dons, who have made it a ritual to participate in the Mt. Carmel Tournament every late December, will be in the Orange Holiday Classic, beginning on Friday with a pool play contest against Long Beach Wilson High. Cerritos will also play Fullerton High on Saturday and Boulder City High on Monday before wrapping up the tournament on Tuesday.
“I would like to see all our players on the court, period,” said Watanabe of the last few games before 605 League action begins on Jan. 6. “[Our injured players] are all projected to be back before January. We have a few who are going to be out; we knew they were probably season-ending. But the ones we’ve been waiting for should be coming back next week or maybe the week after. But they should be able to get a few games under their belt before we start league. That’s the hope.”
Gahr, which had been on a win one, lose one, win one, lose two, win two pattern, will face Crescenta Valley High on Friday in the first game of the South Pasadena Tournament.
“I talked to the kids about [how] we have to start stringing games together,” said Girley. “I said the sign of a good program is to start stringing four or five wins consecutively. Our first game is going to be a tough one. It will be a good test for us to see where we are from a mental standpoint.”
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