Orange Coast College

Women's Basketball: Pirates stunned by Lasers, 58-54

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

COSTA MESA -- Orange Coast College women's basketball coach Mike Thornton has preached all season long that anyone in the Orange Empire Conference can beat anyone at anytime. The Irvine Valley College Lasers proved that theory on Wednesday night with a 58-54 upset win over the host Pirates at OCC's Peterson Gym.

The sophomore tandem of Casey Gomez (22 points, seven rebounds, four steals) and Simone Ibbotson (12 points, four steals) hit 12 of OCC 18 field goals for the game. The rest of the Pirates combined for 6-of-27 shooting (22.2 percent) from the floor.

OCC (18-8, 5-2 in OEC) trailed 44-43 after a Michelle Lewis brought the Pirates to within a point with 6:05 left in the game. From there, OCC did not hit another field goal until a Casey Gomez bucket with 33 seconds remaining.

The only thing keeping the Pirates in the game was the lack of made free throws by the Lasers (14-13, 2-6) as they went just 8-of-16 from the line in the second half.

Trailing 55-52 with 30 seconds left, IVC's Erika Garcia (15 points) missed two free throws, giving OCC a chance to tie the game. On the inbounds pass, Gomez was fouled and she calmly made both from the line to make it 55-54. Courtney Kollasch (19 points) was fouled with 22 seconds left and she made 1-of-2, giving Coast another opportunity to pull even or ahead. But a costly turnover with four seconds left iced the game for the Lasers as Ashley Dunn (11 points) put the game away with two made free throws.

Coast returns to action at Saddleback on Friday before returning to the Peterson Gym on Wednesday to take on Cypress. Both games tip off at 7:30 p.m.