605 LEAGUE BASKETBALL Cerritos squads too fast for John Glenn, soar past Eagles in league opener

January 7, 2026

 By Loren Kopff • @LorenKopff on X

 The first game of the final 605 League season in its current format began this past Tuesday with Cerritos High, winners of a combined seven boys and girls basketball  league titles since its inception in the 2018-2019 school year, visiting John Glenn High. The boys game featured the veteran head coach of 24 seasons, Jonathan Watanabe, against first-year head coach Sam Saatzer, who is Glenn’s fourth head coach in as many seasons and fifth in the past six seasons.

As one would expect, there would be no rookie surprises in this game as the Dons scored the first 21 points of the game and cruised to a 77-31 victory, improving to 9-10 overall. But the game wasn’t entirely about the final score. While it’s still a learning experience for Saatzer and the seniors, who have to learn a new system once again, Cerritos had a season-high 11 players score, indicating that little by little, Watanabe is getting his injured players back.

“It’s nice to see guys back,” said Watanabe. “This is [junior] Isaiah DelaCruz’ first game back; he had a broken tibia, and it was bad. This was in the spring and just to see him get back on the court is amazing. But seeing him play like he used to play is a sight to see. It’s hard not to root for that kid.”

DelaCruz scored four points and grabbed three rebounds, all in the final half of the third quarter as the Dons scored the last 12 points of the stanza to lead 64-18. Junior Jeremiah Ju, who had started the previous seven games and 14 of the last 16, came off the bench to score a team-high 11 points, grab three rebounds and have three steals while starting juniors Noah Edwards and Noah Lai and freshman Jace Ribac, all scored 10 points as did sophomore Anay Patel, who came off the bench.

On the other side of the court, it’s been a difficult season for the Eagles (4-8), who are just trying to get some wins to change the culture and attitude that they can compete and that they can win. But Glenn was facing a team that was just too fast, and it showed as the Dons had scoring runs of 21-0, 10-0 and 16-0. Glenn was able to record consecutive points three times.

“I don’t know what they were expecting,” said Saatzer. “We’ve had a mindset where I think there’s been a lot of losing at this school and the history of this school, and it’s trying to teach these kids that there’s a reason why we play these games. That’s why there’s no wins or losses on paper. I think we’re going to be okay; I think this is a team, a speed that we have not played this year, and I think they were shocked by it.

“We’ve played a lot of teams that don’t want to play as fast as Cerritos and all credit to them,” he continued. “They have a lot of fast guys on [their team]. We would make a bucket, and they would beat us down the floor immediately before we could set our defense. And that’s just a lack of hustle on our part, and that’s something we’re going to cleanup.”

“We’re not big, so we have to be fast,” said Watanabe. “That’s part of the trade-off. I told them [and] I speak from experience; if you’re smaller than the team [you’re playing], you better be faster than them. So we do practice to try to play at a fast pace, and I think some of it though is the competition we play. We play a heavy schedule early; we play teams who are faster than us. So we are forced to pick our speed up to a level.”

Glenn turned the ball over nine times just in the first quarter alone as the Dons would have 15 steals in the game, six coming from Ribac and four coming from Lai. But more discouraging than the ball handling was the ineffectiveness of senior Bundana Adams, the go-to player of the past one and a half seasons for the Eagles. Adams was held to a season-low five points and was two of 15 from the field.

While Adams was struggling, Saatzer, who was Glenn’s junior varsity head coach last season and an assistant on the varsity team, was impressed with the play of senior Jonathan Lara. The second leading scorer for the Eagles this season scored 11 points, had seven rebounds, three blocks, an assist and a steal. Senior Jesse Caldwell added 10 points with a pair of assists, a block and a steal.

“Jonathan was the only one that really seemed like he was ready to play,” said Saatzer. “He was busting his butt the whole game getting rebounds and getting putbacks. He scored almost half of our points and had probably 50 percent of our rebounds. Effort-wise, this was his best game. I’ll say out of everyone, he was the only one that didn’t make me angry tonight.”

With nine more league games plus six non-league games scheduled, the Eagles still have time to reach the win output of last season, eight, and even exceed it. The program had three straight seasons of at least 11 wins before last season, but the program has also been to the playoffs three times in the past 26 seasons.

“We’ve talked about what it would take to get into the playoffs,” said Saatzer. “We’re not in a place that we thought we would be record-wise at this point in the season. So, the league matters even more than we even thought it would. I’m hoping this is a wake-up call for them to be like ‘this the speed of every game that we’re going to play; this is the skill of every game that we’re going to play’.”

“Sam is doing a great job with them,” said Watanabe. “We were watching them on film, and I didn’t realize he was their j.v. coach last year. But he’s stepped in, and you can tell, they are competing. He is holding them accountable on every possession, and you’ve seen some of the subbing’s he made. He’s trying to build a culture, and that’s what it takes.

“I remember back in 2001 or 2002, we were kind of in the same boat trying to get that same type culture built, and it takes time,” he continued. “They’ve had a hard time with the transition of different coaches year after year. So, it’s hard to establish that culture. But hopefully he stays with it. With what they’re doing and what they’re starting, it’s definitely good for the school and it’s definitely good for the program.”

Glenn will visit Pioneer High on Friday, Rancho Alamitos High on Saturday, Oxford Academy on Monday and Whitney High on Wednesday while the Dons have a big game against Whitney on Friday for its home opener before going to Pioneer on Monday. Cerritos comes back home on Wednesday to face Artesia High.

“It’s something that I naively thought I could do in a couple of months, and I’ve been rudely awaken that that’s not possible to do,” said Saatzer of changing the culture. “It’s going to be a long term thing, and I want to be here for at least the next few years, hopefully long term to build something because there hasn’t been someone consistently here for a very long time.”

“It’s just the next big game,” said Watanabe of facing Whitney. “We’re just taking it one game at a time. Every single game that comes up next is our next big one. So, we took care of business tonight and Friday against Whitney will be a big one.”

Prior to the game, the Cerritos girls spotted the Eagles a 2-0 lead before scoring the next 21 points on their way to an 84-11 victory. All 11 points came in the first half as the Dons led 50-11 at the break and all 12 players who saw action for Cerritos scored at least two points. Senior Cameron Lacorte scored 20 points, connecting on six of eight three-pointers, and had three steals while sophomore Leah Lopez came off the bench to score a season-high 15 points with three perimeter baskets. Senior Camille Mangahis and junior Kianna Rangel each added 10 points with the former getting three of her five rebounds on the offensive end.

All five Glenn starters accounted for all the points with senior Michelle Marin and sophomore Jay Curl each adding three points to their season totals. Curl also pulled down 11 rebounds.