At the basketball gymnasium at El Camino College on Oct. 9, visiting teams Grand Canyon University, Cal Miramar and Westcliff University took part in an exhibition game.
The Warriors finished 3-4 for the night. In last place, visiting team Westcliff ended with a 2-3 record. The top team heading into the scrimmage was Cal Miramar.
Cal Miramar Fighting Falcons are now 3-1 in exhibition play through nine games, while GCU ended 3-2.
In the first matchup of the scrimmage, Cal Miramar won by scoring a three-pointer with two seconds left in the game. Forward Waylon Anderson shot from the three-point line, leading to a 17-11 triumph against the Fighting Falcons.
Fighting Falcon’s point guard Maiki Jackson recorded six steals, while Dejon Daniels tallied six out of seven. Anderson completed one shot beyond the three-point line out of five attempts.
During the eighth scrimmage game of the evening, the Warriors went for revenge as the team won the second matchup against Cal Miramar 17-13 with help from point guard Jedaiah Mortimer. He scored a crucial jump shot close to the free throw line.
On defense, Mortimer tallied three steals and seven defensive points against Cal Miramar. The Fighting Falcons went 3-1 for all four games. The Warriors went 3-4 through nine games.
Cal Miramar’s point guard Maiki Jackson contributed defensively, along with defensive adjustments.
“We were getting some people off the ball defensively, and having their more versatile and longer guards play off the ball and I felt we needed to get more steals and play more defensive as much as possible,” Jackson said.
Cal Miramar shooting guard Dejon Daniels helped the team gain momentum by passing the ball to his teammates and getting both offensive and defensive rebounds.
“One thing that I noticed from this year compared to last year is that we shared the ball a lot more and our chemistry is there without playing shellfish basketball,” Daniels said. “We played today as a unit.”
Daniels said that this scrimmage it gave them confidence for the team going into the season.
“We wanted to create our own tempo and let them play our game and play how we play the game,” Daniels added.
El Camino basketball coach Robert Uphoff said his team struggled with fundamentals during the scrimmage.
“We have been trying to drill our core defensive fundamentals but it wasn’t shown accurately in tonight’s scrimmages,” Uphoff said. “We needed to handle our pressure and how other teams give us the pressure.”
The Warriors’ final scrimmage will be on the road at Santiago Canyon on Oct. 25 before the season kicks off on Nov. 1 against the Santa Barbara City Vaqueros at 7 p.m.
