The Irvine Valley women's basketball team's season ended with a hard-fought, 73-53, loss at Ventura in a California Community College Athletic Association So. Cal. Regional Playoff Final game on Saturday night at Ventura.
The Lasers were looking to make the state tournament for the second straight season. Instead, Ventura reached the event for a state-record 18th time, the 17th time in 29 years.
Irvine Valley finished its season with a record of 23-6 overall. The team won the Orange Empire Conference title and had sophomore standout guard Lexi Vail named the OEC MVP and selected to the all-state squad.
Vail had 10 points, six rebounds and four assists on Saturday. Freshman center Zoe Stachowski, who was named second-team all-conference, led the way with 18 points and 16 rebounds. Freshman guard Anai Washington finished with 10 points and 11 rebounds and sophomore forward Ryane Bradbury had six points for Irvine Valley.
Talia Taufaasau had 24 points, including 19 in the second half, to lead the way for Ventura, while Emma Larson had her second season-high in as many games with 16 points, including four three-pointers.
Cece Quintino netted 13 points with six rebounds and six assists for the Pirates (25-9).
Irvine Valley, the No. 13 seed, jumped out early, scoring the first seven points of the game.
But the Lasers were down, 31-20, at the end of the first half. They were playing catch up after that.
Irvine Valley ended up shooting just 33.3 percent (23 of 69) from the field as a team, 23.1 percent (6 of 26) from three-point range and 7.1 percent (1 of 14) from the free throw line.
