Irvine Valley's men's basketball team is in the Southern California Regional Playoffs and will host a first-round game on Wednesday night.
The Lasers, who are seeded 16th, will host No. 18 Ventura.
The two teams already met once this season, but it came in IVC's third game of the year in November. Irvine Valley defeated Ventura, 72-64, in the opening round of the Irvine Valley Classic.
Both teams are much different heading into Wednesday.
Ventura has a record of 17-12 overall and won the Western State Conference North Division with a 8-2 record.
The Pirates have won seven of their last eight games. Ventura closed out its conference with a 83-56 win at Santa Barbara City last Saturday.
Vida Faniel had 15 points and seven rebounds, Isiah Reyes came off the bench with 14 points, Cordel Hankerson and Trevor LaCount each chipped in 10 points and Eddie Cowan had seven assists.
Faniel was named the WSC North Division MVP and Ventura coach Joey Ramirez was named the coach of the year for the second straight season.
Hankerson and Reyes were each named first team all-conference and Cowan was picked second team.
On the season, Hankerson averages 17.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.4 steals, Reyes averages 14.7 points Faniel averages 14.0 points and 8.3 rebounds, Calvin Young averages 8.1 points and LaCount averages 7.8 points and 5.2 rebounds.
Irvine Valley has a record of 14-13 overall.
The Lasers finished fourth in the Orange Empire Conference and earned the No. 15 seed in the So. Cal. Regional Playoffs. Five teams from the OEC made the playoffs.
IVC was moved to the 16 seed to avoid a possible conference match-up in the next round.
The Lasers finished the regular season with a 83-67 win over Orange Coast and a 79-59 loss to Riverside last week.
Sophomore point guard Zuri Williams poured in a career-high 24 points in IVC's win over OCC at home, freshman forward Lance Coleman II added 20 points and 12 rebounds and freshman guard Daniel Hernandez contributed 17 points.
The Lasers shot just 38.9 percent from the field and 19.0 percent from three-point range in the defeat at Riverside. Coleman had 14 points in the loss.
Coleman leads the team, averaging 18.2 points per game. He also averages 6.9 rebounds.
Williams averages 8.8 points, 3.1 assists and 1.7 steals, sophomore guard Mike Turner averages 8.0 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.0 steals, sophomore forward Zach Harvey averages 7.0 points and 5.0 rebounds and sophomore guard Anthony Hernandez is adding 6.4 points a game.
Coleman was named first team all-conference and Harvey was named second team all-conference last week.
This is Irvine Valley's first trip to the playoffs since the 2013-14 season.
The winner of Wednesday night's game moves on to face No. 2 El Camino-Compton in the second round on Saturday night.
