WBB: Season Comes to an End at Irvine on Cold Shooting Night

The MSJC women's basketball team saw their season come to an end on Saturday at Irvine Valley, the Eagles finish the year with a 27-3 record.  (Jerry Lee Palad-MSJC)
The MSJC women's basketball team saw their season come to an end on Saturday at Irvine Valley, the Eagles finish the year with a 27-3 record. (Jerry Lee Palad-MSJC)

The MSJC women's basketball team saw their season come to an end on Saturday night at Irvine Valley as the Eagles fell 59-52 in the second round of the CCCAA Regional Tournament.

The game was made up of runs from both teams as they went back and forth throughout the contest.  MSJC jumped out to an early 9-2 lead on a pair of jumpers by Jana Roman a lay-up by Sandee Heiermann and a three pointer by Shyann Morreo.  Irvine answered quickly with a 9-0 run before going on to lead at the end of the first quarter 23-16.  The Lasers built the lead to as much as 11 midway through the second period, before the Eagles answered to cut the lead to 37-31 at the half.

The third quarter was all MSJC as the Eagles scored the first 11 points to retake the lead.  MSJC held the Lasers to just 3 points in the period and led 45-40 heading to the final 10 minutes.  The Eagles then went cold from the field making just 3 of 16 shots in the fourth while Irvine made one more push to reclaim the lead once again and put the game away down the stretch.  For the game the Eagles shot a disappointing 29% (20-68) from the field and despite getting off 9 more shots than the Lasers came up short.

Heiermann finished her stellar MSJC career with a team high 14 points for the Eagles, she also had 6 rebounds and 3 assists.  Valeria Brewer added 12 points off the bench and Rayven Crook finished with 11 points for MSJC.  Alexis Pina had a team high 14 rebounds and 3 blocks in the loss.

The Eagles, who were making their 16th straight play-off appearance, ended the season with a 27-3 record.  MSJC won their 5th straight conference title this year and their 8th in the past 10 seasons.  Irvine improved to 21-8 and moved on to the Regional final against Orange Coast on Saturday.