Orange Coast College

Women's Basketball: Pirates slip past Riverside, 54-52

Friday, January 23, 2009

COSTA MESA -- What looked like a horrible version of déjà vu turned into a truckload of "WHEW" for Casey Gomez and the Orange Coast College women's basketball team.

With the game tied with 3 seconds left, Gomez was fouled and calmly drained two clutch free throws to lift the Pirates past visiting Riverside 54-52 on Friday in Orange Empire Conference action.

With the entire team struggling from the charity stripe (3-of-10 prior to the final two made attempts), a last-second foul by the Tigers and two shots from the line for Coast wasn't as anticipating as it should of been.

But Gomez, who had some previous last-second experience from the free-throw line, learned from the past and swished home both shots, giving OCC (17-7, 4-1 in conference) the lead for good.

Simone Ibbotson (pictured right) led Coast with 23 points and nine rebounds, while Gomez added 15 points, four rebounds and seven assists. The sophomore duo combined for 16-of-21 shooting, while the rest of the team combined for 7-of-25 from the field.

Leslie Ross led Riverside (11-13, 2-3) with 15 points.

OCC led for most of the game and carried a 10-point advantage with 3:30 left before a 12-3 run cut the lead to 52-51 with 37 seconds left.

Two missed free throws by the Pirates was followed by a game-tying free throw by Kymberly Ooten with 10 seconds left.

From there, Gomez took the inbounds pass and drove toward the basket, where she drew a Tigers' foul with 3 seconds remaining.

The Pirates return to action on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. against Santa Ana at OCC's Peterson Gym.