Irvine Valley's men's basketetball team came back from 11 points down early in the second half and defeated Santa Ana, 62-61, in an Orange Empire Conference game on the road Wednesday night.
Sophomore shooting guard Roman Swizek hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 19 seconds left off a pass from sophomore guard Luke Farrington to put the Lasers up by a point.
Santa Ana's Kaden Minter missed a jumper with seven seconds left and IVC freshman forward Josiah Reed snagged the rebound to put the game away.
Irvine Valley trailed, 35-26, at the half and was down, 37-26, with 19:33 left in the game.
The Lasers were still down by eight points with under seven minutes to play and were down, 57-52, with just 2:59 to go before rallying for the victory.
"Roman hit a big shot," IVC coach Jerry Hernandez said. "It really wasn't a set play, but we kept the ball moving. We swung it to Luke and he found Roman open."
Swizek finished with 19 points and four rebounds. He made 4 of 7 three-point attempts.
Sophomore post player Jesse Stines finished with 17 points and six rebounds. He also went 9 of 12 from the free throw line.
Reed ended with eight points and six rebounds off of the bench and sophomore point guard David Ogunlade and Farrington each contributed six points. Ogunlade also had six rebounds and five assists for IVC.
Hernandez said a big difference in the game was the way the Lasers rebounded in the second half.
"We have been out-rebounded in all of our five losses and we were out-rebounded again Wednesday, but I thought our guys, especially Jesse and Josiah went to the glass to get the ball much better as the game went on," Hernandez said.
Santa Ana was paced by Minter and Mac West, who each scored 18 points.
Irvine Valley plays again on Friday, hosting Fullerton in a conference game at 6 p.m.
A preview of that contest will be posted Thursday night.
