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Cerritos High junior Kalana Nguyen (left) and senior Mady Macaraeg hold up a banner that recognizes head coach Marcus Chinen for winning his 200th girls basketball game at the school, which happened on Dec 18 at Garfield High. Then the Dons defeated Whitney High 72-58 to improve to 9-11 overall at the time and 2-0 in the 605 League.
By Loren Kopff
Sports Editor | Follow X
January 13, 2026
On a night when Cerritos High head coach Marcus Chinen was recognized for reaching the 200-win milestone, which occurred on Dec. 18 against Garfield High, the Dons made the most of a depleted lineup. Making it better was the fact that they were facing their city rivals, Whitney High, which won the 605 League last season and had won nine of the previous 14 league meetings.
Backed by solid performances from all five starters, who accounted for all but two points, the Dons, with nine healthy players, took control of the game in the opening minutes of the second half and defeated the Wildcats 72-58 last Friday.
“I had no idea; I didn’t pay attention to any of that,” said Chinen on reaching the milestone last month. “That was a surprise, and it was an honor. I thank [assistant] coach Brittney [Parker-Goodin] and all the other coaches for that. I couldn’t have done it without the past coaches who I’ve had, especially coach Richard Villeza. He was my…I guess you could call it the ying and yang, and we were there all the way up until last year.”
Following the brief pregame recognition, the first quarter featured four ties, one lead change as neither team had more than a four-point advantage. But as the case in the previous 15 games this season, the Wildcats had to heavily rely on their starters, three of whom are the only holdovers from last season’s CIF Division 5 state championship team.
Junior Alyssa So led the charge with six points, four rebounds and an assist in the first eight minutes while freshman Ella Nelson added two baskets and a pair of rebounds while senior Tina Namaranian, the top bench player from last season’s squad, pitched in with a three-pointer, two rebounds, two steals and an assist. That would be a recurring theme in the other three quarters with those three players.
“I was well-schooled about what Cerritos does [in the past] from the parents,” said Whitney first-year head coach Carl Wilson. “They basically have a target on Tina and [junior] Alyssa [So], and it was quite obvious in the first minute of the game when they hit Tina in the head and probably broke her nose. Tina played probably the whole game with a broken nose.
“I was warned it was going to be physical; I’ve also been warned that Oxford [Academy] and Cerritos and Pioneer all colluded how to beat Whitney,” he continued. “That’s what’s been going on for years, and this is what I was told by last year’s coach, [Myron] Jacobs, and maybe even three or four parents told me the same thing as well. I don’t think too much stock in that; I’m an experienced enough coach to know that if I’m prepared, I should be able to handle all that.”
Just over half a minute into the second quarter, sophomore Jaslyn Macaraeg grabbed an offensive rebound and passed to sophomore Analiyah Coneita who gave the Dons a 15-14 lead. The hosts would not trail the remainder of the half, but its biggest lead would be seven, which came after Macaraeg had a steal and scored with 2:27 left to put her team up 26-19.
So began the second half with a two-pointer and a three-pointer within the first 63 seconds to give Whitney a 31-30 lead. After that, Cerritos ramped up its game and went on an 11-0 run that the Wildcats could not recover from. It began with a three-pointer from Coneita, and less than a minute later, sophomore Julia Santos scored on a steal.
Following a timeout from Wilson, a steal and three-pointer from Macaraeg gave Cerritos its biggest lead to this point at 39-31. Even though the final five minutes of the third quarter would be nearly even in the scoring department, it was evident that Cerritos had more firepower than the Wildcats.
And even though Whitney had basically its starters who did nearly all the offense, Chinen wasn’t about to key in on just them, or one or two players.
“It’s all of them, because when you look at it, I’ve heard…there’s someone else on there too who has shot the ball well,” said Chinen. “So, it’s not just one [player]. The thing is when you start hitting three’s, it’s contagious. One hits, then another one hits, and the confidence goes up. When that happens to a team, and it starts rolling, that’s when a team becomes very dangerous.”
Whitney thought it was going on such a roll within the first two minutes of the fourth quarter as the ‘Cats chipped into their deficit with Namaranian and Nelson each connecting on a field goal and So converting a pair of free throws to make it a 55-48. Then it went south for the visitors.
“I actually thought we could win the game,” said Wilson. “I’ve been down by three points before with four seconds to go and win the game. I’m always thinking I’m in the game, and we’ve been down by double digits in some of our games and come back to win them. But, if you were sitting there watching the same game, by then with six minutes to go, my starters are fried. They are giving everything and playing as hard as they possibly can.”
Coneita converted a three-point play, then Wilson was called for a technical foul for asking one of the referees, ‘what are we playing, football’? Senior Cameron Lacorte made both free throws and on the ensuing possession, Coneita made a basket and 49 seconds later, another one as Cerritos scored nine straight points in a span of 1:10. Although Whitney would get back to within a dozen points, with 2:44 left to play, time would run out as it missed its final four baskets in the game.
“That was huge; I think Analiyah got us going,” said Chinen. “And then when Cam had those two free throws, from there I think the girls started feeling it a little bit more and started feeling more relaxed. I think we were tense all the way up until then, and when we started hitting some shots, I think the team started relaxing and we started playing our game.”
But even with a 16-point lead with 2:19 remaining, Chinen was ready to celebrate because he has seen double-digit leads evaporate with less time on the clock.
“They have some very good three-point shooters, [and] they rebound very well,” said Chinen. “Even though we have a 10 or a 12-point lead, and with a minute left, that’s not a secured game, especially with some girls who can shoot the ball.”
So was the top scorer in the game with 22 points and grabbed five rebounds while Namaranian added 20 points and seven rebounds. Nelson pitched in with a dozen points and nine rebounds while junior Cheyanne Cheung pulled down seven boards.
“We don’t have a big post presence,” said Wilson. “Alyssa So is a dynamic basketball player. If she was a foot taller, she would be a [NCAA Division] 1 prospect.”
He went on to say that So is one of the top five players he has ever coached, which includes stints at Inglewood High from 1991-2000 with the boys team, El Camino College and Brentwood High. Making things worse for Wilson and the Wildcats, his bench consists of three freshmen and three sophomores, some of whom he had to recruit at the school when he took the job this past fall.
“I know this sounds like excuses, but these are the facts, and it goes back to numbers,” he later continues. “I don’t have the numbers to even scrimmage against anybody in practice. So, if you look at my bench, with the three freshmen, realistically should be playing [on the junior varsity team], plus the freshman I have starting on varsity. If I had the other players who quit [from last season’s team], we would be a much more rounded team being able to handle physicality. But if you look at all the losses we have, they have come against teams who have a big post presence, and I can’t make excuses for that.”
Macaraeg paced the Dons with 21 points while Coneita had 18 points and three steals and Lacorte pitched in with 16 points. Junior Kianna Rangle once again came up huge on the glass, grabbing 10 rebounds while scoring seven points and Santos rounded out the starting five with eight points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals.
As members of the 605 League, Chinen has finished in first place three times, second place twice, including last season, and third place twice while Whitney has won the league title three times and finished in second place three times with a fourth place finish sprinkled in there.
Before last Friday, the five Cerritos wins over Whitney have been by six, 10, 20, four and five points. Thus, whenever these two programs face each other, it seems to be each other’s most important league contest.
“I think what it is, when you really look at the big picture overall, they don’t have a football team,” said Chinen. “So when it comes to a rivalry, it starts with a football team and trickles down into the other sports. With us, their rivalry, because their crosstown, is us. Other than that, I would say they bring out the best of us, and I think we bring out the best of them.”
Whitney (10-7, 2-1) got back to its winning ways with a 50-43 win over Artesia High this past Monday and will visit Pioneer High on Friday before hosting Mayfair High on Tuesday in a non-league tilt and Oxford Academy on Wednesday. Cerritos visited Pioneer this past Monday and defeated the Titans 69-55, moving its mark to 10-11, 3-0. The Dons will go to Oxford Academy on Friday before hosting John Glenn High on Wednesday. The rematch with Whiney on the east side of town will be on Jan. 23, which is Whitney’s homecoming game.
“It basically comes down to one thing; execution,” said Wilson of the rematch. “If we execute our plays, there are plays that they’ve never seen. I purposely didn’t run a lot of stuff [tonight] that I normally run. I learned a long time ago you don’t show all your cards the first time you play somebody.”
“It’s going to be pretty intense over there also,” said Chinen. “They’re going to bring it, and we have to match their intensity. It’s going to be loud and it’s going to be a very good game, and we look forward to it and look forward to the challenge. This is something that will help us going into the playoffs, and hopefully we can make a good run. But they push us and we push them.”
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