The Talon Marks Curse

If you know sports, or even if you know video games, odds are you're familiar with the Madden curse. If not, the basics go something like this: whichever ill-fated athlete ends up on the cover of the newest Madden football game will undoubtedly incur a debilitating injury at some point in the next NFL season.

Unfortunately, there is strong evidence of another curse in the world of sports and Talon Marks is to blame. In the two most recent issues of the Talon Marks, there was a full page feature on the success of one of the sports teams. This feature was meant to highlight each team's success and preview what should have been a successful run deep into the postseason. However, both teams (women's water polo and football) were both eliminated from the playoffs prematurely within days of being featured in the paper.

Maybe it's coincidence, but maybe not. Did we, the sports section at the Talon Marks, somehow curse our own sports teams by dedicating an entire page to them? Or was the regular season simply a poor indicator of the strength of each team? These are questions that, for now, will have to remain a mystery. The last fall edition of the Talon Marks will not have a feature of a team, and the playoffs will have been finished by then anyway.

Just in case, we would like to issue an informal apology to the women's water polo and the football team for possibly being the source of their misfortune over the last few weeks. This is something that will be further investigated in the winter when both basketball teams (hopefully) begin postseason play. For now, the men's soccer team can rest assured that they will not be featured in the final fall edition of Talon Marks. Seeing as how they are the final Cerritos athletic team remaining from the fall, we would like to wish it luck on it's quest for a back-to-back state title.

Playoff Fever!

With the football team's win over El Camino yesterday, the playoffs are officially here! Yes, they have technically been going on for the last week or so, and some teams are still finishing out the regular season, but it finally starts to get good. This is the time of the semester (community college) sports fans look forward to.

Here is a quick rundown of what to expect over the next few weeks as Cerritos athletics begins its trek to state championships.

Football: After hyping football just a second ago, it only makes sense to start with them here. Finishing 9-1 to end the regular season, the Falcons of the gridiron will host Palomar College in the first round of the playoffs. Yes, community colleges do it the right way and have playoffs, and make bowl games a consolation prize. Look for Cerritos to go deep into the playoffs, as it is ranked No. 5 in the state and has proven it can get the job done on both sides of the ball.

Cross Country: The men's and women's cross country team will travel to Fresno to take part in the state championship meet on Nov. 21. The men secured their spot in the final by placing sixth in the Southern California championship, while the women placed ninth in the same meet. Last year the men placed eleventh in state and the women fifth. This year, a top ten finish will be more than respectable for either squad.

Water Polo: The men's water polo season came to an end when they were defeated by Mt. San Antonio, 10-5, on Nov. 12 in the Souther California Regional Playoffs. The men went into the tournament as the eighth seed and ended the season 17-11. The women were also knocked out of the playoffs by a familiar foe. The Falcons lost, 5-3, to Long Beach in the second round of the So. Cal. Regional Tournament. The loss was only the second of the year for Cerritos (30-2), and is surely a disappointment for a team that looked poised for another state championship.

Soccer: The women's soccer team came into the season ranked No. in the nation, but ended the regular season by narrowly claiming the SCC crown. The team are still one of the favorites to repeat as state champions, but the couple of stumbles along the way (most recently, a 2-1 loss to El Camino) leaves a glimmer of hope for the competition. The men entered the season as the N0. 2 team in the country, but have faltered enough to finish only second in the SCC. Their performance during the regular season should still be enough to earn them a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Look for both teams to make deep runs into the playoffs with another state championship from both teams a good possibility.

Volleyball: The regular season ends on Wednesday, when Cerritos will travel to LA City. The Falcons are assured at least a share of third place in the SCC, and will begin the playoffs on Nov. 24. The team is coming off a sweep of Mt. SAc, and if it beats LA City then the momentum being carried into the playoffs may be just enough to advance Cerritos into the regional finals.

Wrestling: The Cerritos grapplers will also finish their regular season on Wednesday by hosting Palomar. Two days later, the state duals championships begin on Nov. 20, followed by the Fullerton Open on Nov. 21. All of this will be good preparation for the So Cal regional tournament on Dec. 5. Caleb Gerl and Jose Lopez stand the best chance at individual glory at 184 and 285 pounds respectively.

So there you have it. Some disappointment, some excitement, and much more still to come over the next few weeks. Keep an eye on the rest of the playoffs, as Cerritos is likely to come out on top in many of these playoff contests.

(UN)fair play

Before you read this post, you must watch this video (and read the article if you're so inclined)....

Now let the contents sink in a bit...

Maybe you're disgusted by what you saw, maybe you're indignant, or maybe you're unperturbed. The one thing you should not feel is shock. Surprise, possibly. Shock? Please...

The actions of New Mexico's Elizabeth Lambert were somewhat over the top, to say the least. There's no excuse for things like pulling a girl down by the hair or throwing not one, but two, punches while going for a loose ball. What's even more deplorable than the actions of Lambert, was the actions (or inaction) of the referee(s).

This was a NCAA division 1 match, with what one would expect to be top notch officials. However, after the half dozen or so attacks (yes, they can be labeled as attacks) by Lambert, she wound up with nothing but a yellow card? That's the same punishment for tugging on someone's jersey. To allow such play to continue is a terrible display of refereeing, but again, it was not shocking.

Why is it not surprising Lambert wasn't punished more severely during the match? Really, one can't be certain. However I have a sneaking suspicion it's because she is a she and not a he.

Now, I am not trying to be sexist here. But, the truth of the matter is that from my own experiences watching both men's and women's games (many times one after the other) at Cerritos and elsewhere, the women get away with far more fouls than the men. In a modest attempt to prove this observation, we can look at things on a large and small scale.

On the large scale, a comparison between the number of yellow cards handed out in the American professional soccer leagues MLS (men's) and WPS (women's) show a disparity. Over the course of the last season of the MLS, the 15 teams averaged 1.868 yellow cards per game during the 30-game season. The teams in the WPS, on the other hand, averaged 0.871 cautions per game over the inaugural 20-game season this last year. On top of that, each MLS team committed an average of 11.464 fouls per game. Each WPS team averaged only 8.507 fouls per game. These stats show quite a disparity in the men's and women's games at the professional level. Now, what about at the community college level?

On October 9, Cerritos travelled across the 605 to take on Long Beach. In somewhat of a ho hum match that saw Cerritos beat LBCC 3-0, there were a total of 43 fouls called (nearly twice as much as the average MLS game.) From a mostly unbiased viewpoint, there were a number of times the ref probably could have swallowed his whistle and allowed play to go on. Most of the fouls were legitimate though.

In the women's game directly afterwards, the atmosphere on the pitch was intense from the beginning. After every play, there was just a little something extra (a push, a kick, a discreet punch). It was especially obvious that ex-Viking Nancy Gandarillas was the target of many of these assaults. So, how many fouls were called in the match? 13. Only 4 on Long Beach and 9 on Cerritos. That's 30 less fouls called in the women's game than in the men's.

The most interesting thing about the women's game is that a total of 5 cautions were handed out: 3 on LBCC and 2 on Cerritos (inlcuding one in the last minute of the game that was a retaliation against what Cerritos believed to be unusually rough play on the part of LBCC). That's 5 cautions and only 13 fouls in the game. In the men's game there were only 2 cautions to go along with the 43 fouls.

This micro example is not perfect. The officiating crew in the men's was different than the women's, and maybe it was just that referee that was subpar. However, in each subsequent game that Long Beach has played, the men are ALWAYS called for more fouls than the women.

If women soccer players are called for less fouls than men, then it can't be a shock that when it's a female soccer player that pulls a stunt (make that multiple stunts) like Lambert did. That's not to say that female athletes play dirtier than men or that there have not been countless incidents where men are the culprits of insidious play. The point is, since women are called for less fouls during the course of a game, then it shouldn't be shocking when a player like Lambert takes advantage of the lax atmosphere created by referees.