Irvine Valley's women's basketball team battled back from an early deficit, but it wasn't enough in a 68-59 Orange Empire Conference loss at Orange Coast on Wednesday night.
Sophomore forward Kydell Pearson had 21 points, five rebounds and four assists to lead the Lasers, while freshman guard Serena Saba added 13 points and freshman guard Elizabeth Garcia tossed in 10 points with six rebounds, six assists and four steals.
Freshman forward Taylor Hall came off the bench with 10 rebounds to go along with four points.
Irvine Valley's record slipped to 9-12 overall and 1-4 in conference.
Michelle Wu had 24 points to lead Orange Coast.
Wu was 9 of 12 from the floor, including 4 of 7 from three-point range. Chyann Pendergrass and Megan McCullough added 10 points each for the Pirates (14-9, 2-3).
Coast drained 11 three-pointers for the night to spark its offense.
The Pirates jumped out to an 11-0 lead off the bat after three-pointers by Danielle Obong, Sydney Driggs and Pendergrass.
The OCC lead grew to as many as 14 (32-18) before IVC began to chip away at the deficit, using a 14-7 run to close out the half down by only seven (39-32).
The Lasers opened the third quarter with an 7-1 run and got to within a point at 40-39 with 5:48 left in the frame, but Coast reeled off nine straight points to pull the lead back up to double figures.
From there, three-pointers by McCullough, Wu and Bela Raimondi in the fourth quarter kept the Pirates comfortably in front the rest of the night, giving OCC its third win of the year against the Lasers.
Irvine Valley has a bye on Friday and plays again next Wednesday at home against Riverside at 5 p.m.
