Junior College BASKETBALL : Brown Leads Moorpark to WSC Final Against Taft

Moorpark College defeated Santa Barbara City College, 51-43, Friday night in the semifinals of the Western State Conference basketball tournament at Taft College.

Moorpark will meet WSC champion Taft, a 106-80 winner over Oxnard in the other semifinal, at 7 tonight at Taft for the right to be the top-seeded team from the WSC. Both teams have now qualified for the California Community College Tournament, which starts with regional games next week.

The Raiders held a 14-point lead, 39-25, with more than nine minutes left. But the Vaqueros made the outcome close behind the strong play of reserve forward Eddie Mitchell, who scored all 10 of his points in the second half.

Moorpark was led by center Kip Brown’s 17 points and 9 rebounds. Woody Jones had 10 points and 5 rebounds for Moorpark, while guard Steve Abraham added 10 assists. Abraham leads the conference with 8.3 assists per game.

Santa Barbara, the state runner-up in 1984, was led by forward Eddie Leon’s 11 points, all in the first half.

Moorpark improved to 20-9, while Santa Barbara finished 16-18.

Valley 75, Canyons 68

Behind 26 points by sophomore Glenn Boss, Valley College upset Mountain Valley Conference champion College of the Canyons in the semifinals of the MVC Tournament in Lancaster.

The Monarchs (17-11) came back from an 11-point halftime deficit. They will face L.A. Southwest (18-12), an 81-75 upset winner over L.A. Trade Tech (17-9) in the other semifinal, at 7:30 p.m. today to decide which team will be seeded No. 1 from the MVC in the state tournament.

Canyons (22-6) previously qualified for an automatic state tournament berth by winning the regular season title. The Cougars got 25 points from James Mixon and 12 from Karl Tompkins.

Glendale 73, Riverside 65

Bill Carr scored 21 points to lead Glendale College in the Inland Valley Conference playoff game before the largest crowd of the year at Glendale. It was the fourth time this season that Glendale has defeated Riverside City College.

John Hoffman and Randy Alexander had 11 each for Glendale while Julius Thomas and Tarre Isiah had 18 each for Riverside.