The irvine Valley men's basketball team needed a win in Orange Empire Conference play.
And the Lasers came through in a 64-61 home win over district rival Saddleback on Wednesday night.
The Lasers improved their record to 10-4 overall and 1-1 in conference play. Saddleback dropped to 8-7 overall and 1-2 in the OEC.
Irvine Valley's defense was the key. The Lasers held Saddleback to its fourth lowest point total of the season.
Saddleback shot 21 of 54 (38.9 percent) from the field and 4 of 16 (25.0 percent) from three-point range.
But the game was close down to the wire.
Irvine Valley led, 31-29, at the half, and then scored 10 of the first 12 points in the second half.
The Lasers took a 41-31 lead on sophomore guard Roman Swizek's jumper with 16:11 to play.
IVC took its largest lead of the game at 60-46 on a three-pointer by Swizek off an assist by sophomore post player Jesse Stines with 4:40 to play in the contest.
And the Lasers led, 62-48, after two free throws by Swizek with 3:19 to go.
Things got interesting the rest of the way.
Saddleback scored the next nine points and pulled to within 62-57 on an Andre Speight jumper with 1:09 left.
A turnover and three missed free throws by the Lasers gave the Bobcats a chance. Saddleback got within 64-61 with 19 seconds to play on a layup by John McFadden.
After two more missed free throws by the Lasers, Saddleback had two opportunities to tie the game in the final seconds, but Saddleback missed a three-pointer and then after receiving a team rebound, turned the ball over on an out of bounds play.
Irvine Valley held on.
For the Lasers, Swizek finished with 21 points on 7 of 14 shooting from the field and made all five of his free throws.
Stines chipped in 16 points, six rebounds and three blocks, sophomore guard Luke Farrington had nine points and sophomore wing Marcus Carter contributed eight points and played great defense all night.
Freshman forward Ethan Tauber added eight rebounds and a block for IVC.
James Burries paced Saddleback with 23 points and 11 rebounds and Speight had 13 points for the Bobcats.
Irvine Valley plays again on Friday at Riverside in another key conference game at 5 p.m.
