Women's basketball team loses opener in Irvine Valley Tournament
Dec 07, 2006
The Irvine Valley women’s basketball team won’t get a chance to defend the title at its own tournament.
The Lasers let a lead slip away in the second half and fell to Chaffey, 60-52, Thursday evening in an opening round game of the Irvine Valley Women’s Tournament.
“We had a great opportunity to win that game, but we didn’t do some of the little things that we needed to do to get it done,” Irvine Valley Coach Julie Hanks said.
Hanks pointed to the team’s 28 turnovers in the game and being out-rebounded by Chaffey, 50-36.
Chaffey, which was ranked 12th in Southern California, did a number on the offensive boards, coming up with 23 to Irvine Valley’s six.
“We didn’t block out at all,” Hanks said. “That is what gave them so many second and third chance points.” Irvine Valley (4-4) led, 25-19, at halftime and was up by as many as seven points in the second half.
The Lasers even held a 32-26 lead on two free throws by sophomore guard Danyelle Swenson with 13:31 left in the game.
But Chaffey (7-3) went on an 8-0 run over the next two and a half minutes to take the lead for good.
Jessica Thorpe and Tierney Arnold hit back-to-back three-pointers and Priscilla Roel grabbed and offensive rebound and scored to put Chaffey ahead, 34-32.
The Panthers took their largest lead of the game at 51-39 after a made free throw with 2:36 left.
Irvine Valley made one last push, going on a 7-0 run to pull within three points. A jumper by freshman forward Nicole Tait cut the deficit to 53-50 with 49.7 seconds left.
But Chaffey answered by beating Irvine Valley’s press and getting a lay-up by Arnold to make it 55-50.
Irvine Valley didn’t get closer than four points the rest of the way.
“I was proud of the way we played hard all the way to the end,” Hanks said. “We just made too many mistakes tonight.”
Swenson had 13 points and freshman center Kayla Acromite finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds for the Lasers. Chaffey had four players score in double figures, led by Brittani Smith and Christina Warren, who each had 12 points. Warren also finished with 11 rebounds and three blocks.
Other winners in first round action on Thursday were Golden West, San Diego Mesa and College of the Desert.