Costly turnovers and little mistakes have hurt the men’s basketball team early in the season and it is now looking for a way to come out with wins.

The Warriors will try to get back into the win column at the Fullerton Tournament, which starts today and ends Saturday.

“I think we’ve got a real good chance of doing well in the tournament,” guard, Richard Caldwell said.

EC will first play Fullerton at 5 p.m. tonight and will play again on Friday.

The Warriors need to win at least one of the games to play on Saturday.

“We can do really well in the tournament, we just have to work as a team,” guard, Robson Dufau said.

The team is coming off a tough loss against L.A. Trade Tech.

It was close in the final minute, but was unable to score and lost 56-52 to bring their record to 1-3.

“It was a good hard fight, we just made little mistakes and it was the factor of the game,” Caldwell said.

The first win of the season came at the Glendale Tournament where the Warriors defeated Victor Valley 82-61, but lost the previous game to Santa Barbara, 76-72.

“Santa Barbara has a good shooting team and we gave them too many rebounds and it came back to hurt us,” forward Michael Archuletta said.

EC has played well collectively so far, but has lost some games by four points or less.

“The game against Victor Valley was awesome, we played as a team,” center Harold Young said. “We couldn’t come back (home) 0-3.”

In the first game of the year, the Warriors fell to defending state champion Compton, 85-73.

Some of the players felt they had a better chance to win, but lack of concentration cost them the game.

“We played pretty well, but we made basic mistakes like turnovers and not getting the easy rebounds; we should have won,” Archuletta said.

Besides commiting fewer turnovers and getting more rebounds, the team members believe that there is another reason why it has lost close games.

“We are not coming out and executing in the first half,” Dufau said. ‘If we play the first half like we do in the second half, we would win more games.’

The women, however, had a better showing during the first game of the year.

With a strong showing in its season opener, the Warriors will look to continue their impressive play today in the Santa Barbara Tournament.

During the first game of the tournament the Warriors will play against on Orange Coast College at 6 p.m.

“We are in a really competitive bracket,” coach Steve Shaw said. “Orange Coast was the state champions two years ago, so they’ve always have a solid program.”

However, freshman Ashley Wallace is very confident about the Warriors possibilities of having a good tournament.

“I think we will be playing for the championship,” Wallace said.
Last Friday, in its season opener, the women defeated the West L.A. Oilers, 69-66.

The Warriors had a double digit lead at the end of the first half running their offense and limiting its turnovers.

“It was a pretty good game,” Wallace said. “We ran our offense well in the first half and we were up by fourteen points.”

However, in the second half the women broke down defensively allowing the Oilers to get back into the game and within three points of tying the game.

“We struggled a little bit, especially during the second half,” Shaw said. “It showed us some of the things that we needed to work on and clean up a bit.”

The Warriors played well for their first game of the season, but the coach said there is room for improvement.

Improvements like learning to play with the lead, as well as staying focused and not letting opponents back into the game, he said.

The Warriors, down the strech turned the ball over frequently, which allowed their opponents to get easy points.

“We ended up with nineteen turnovers , and our goal is supposed to be fourteen or less,” shaw said.

However, Shaw said he noticed the potential the team has and was pleased with the way the team played.

“It was great to get a win,” Shaw said. “I was very pleased with our first half because we limited our turnovers.”

“We shot a good percentage and we played pretty solid defense against a very good team,” he added.

The Warriors will play back- to-back games on Monday at Bakersfield at 6 p.m. and Tuesdaay versus the L.A. City Cubs at 7 p.m.