Irvine Valley's women's basketball team pulled away in the second half to beat Santa Ana, 73-63, in an Orange Empire Conference game on Friday at Santa Ana.
Irvine Valley, ranked seventh in the state and fourth in Southern California, improved its record to 18-3 overall with the victory and 5-0 in conference.
IVC remained a game in front of Cypress for first place in the standings.
Santa Ana's record fell to 7-14 overall and 1-4 in conference.
After a back and forth first half, the Lasers took a 37-35 lead into halftime over Santa Ana.
Irvine Valley took a seven-point lead early in the second half. Santa Ana pulled within one point at 57-56 on a jumper by Jocelyn Calvillo with 7:23 left.
But the Lasers scored the next nine straight points to take control.
Freshman guard Jordan Coleman made a jumper and a layup and sophomore guard Karli Kato sank a three-pointer and a layup to give IVC a 66-56 advantage with 3:45 remaining.
Santa Ana didn't get closer than six points the rest of the way.
The Lasers were led by sophomore center Breanna Turner with 22 points and 15 rebounds while Coleman contributed 15 points, four rebounds, four assists and five steals and sophomore forward Conerie Brennan had 13 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Freshman guard Erika Mercado came off the bench with nine points and Kato finished with seven points for IVC.
Kylie Rodriguez led the way for the Dons with 17 points and 10 rebounds while Duran finished with 12 points.
IVC shot 44.1 percent (26 of 59) from the field and Santa Ana shot 40.7 percent (22 of 54). The Lasers also went to the free throw line 10 more times and made seven more free throws than Santa Ana.
Irvine Valley plays two home games next week. It hosts Fullerton on Wednesday at 5 p.m. Fullerton enters next week third in the conference with a 3-2 record.
IVC then plays host to Orange Coast on Friday at 7 p.m. It will be Coaches vs. Cancer night with all admission sales going to charity.
