It went down to the last shot to decide Wednesday night's Irvine Valley women's basketball team's Orange Empire Conference game with Cypress.
Unfortunately, the Lasers came up just short when sophomore point guard Haruka Mikuma's three-pointer from the right side at the buzzer rimmed out.
Cypress held on for a 64-62 win.
The Chargers, ranked No. 12 in the state, improved their record to 16-8 overall and 5-3 in conference.
IVC, which went into the contest tied with the Chargers for third in the standings, fell to fourth gand 12-12 overall and 4-4 in the OEC.
It was a close game thoughout. Irvine Valley led by as many as seven points late in the first half.
Cypress' largest advantage was four points midway through the fourth quarter.
The Lasers held a 28-27 lead at the half.
It was a tie game at 57-57 after a basket by Irvine Valley freshman forward Neryah Lokeni with 3:30 to play.
And the contest was tied again at 60-60 after IVC sophomore guard Moka Saiki knocked down two free throws.
But a big three-pointer by Kaylsa Ng off of an assist by Christaesha Jackson with one minute to play put the Chargers up for good.
Irvine Valley got within 63-62 on two more free throws with 51 seconds left.
But it ended up not being enough. Cypress made one more free throw to make it a two-point game with seven seconds to go and Mikuma's shot just missed going in.
Cypress' Journie Hayden was the high scorer in the game with 19 points. She added nine rebounds. Ng had 13 points, eight rebounds and four assists and Chelsea Caldera contributed 13 points and six rebounds for the Chargers.
Freshman guard Samantha Barnett led Irvine Valley with 14 points, nine rebounds and two blocks, Saiki had 12 points, eight rebounds and five assists and freshman forward Alexis Price added 10 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and three steals.
Irvine Valley hurt itself by going just 3 of 22 from three-point range.
Both squads shot 31.9 percent as a team from the field.
Irvine Valley plays again in another conference game at Riverside on Friday at 7 p.m.
