Ventura Comes to Life in Win Over Canyons

For a team loaded with sharpshooters, Ventura College has been firing a lot of blanks lately from 3-point range.

The Pirates’ shooting problems continued Wednesday night, especially through the first half of a Western State Conference men’s basketball game at the College of the Canyons.

But Ventura showed enough signs of life in the second half to rally for an 88-86 victory over the persistent Cougars.

Leo Parker scored 18 of his 22 points in the second half and Reggie Betton made a pair of free throws in the last minute to ensure the Pirates’ come-from-behind win.

“From the four-minute mark on, I can’t remember them missing a shot,” Canyons Coach Lee Smelser said of the Pirates. “No matter what we did we could not disrupt them. We would score, but then they had to miss to help us out and they never did.”

Parker scored 8 consecutive points to lead Ventura’s second-half rally. Aaron Clark made a 3-point basket with 25 seconds remaining as Canyons closed to within 86-83, but Betton hit 2 free throws with 21 seconds left. From there, the Cougars could manage only Larry Allbritton’s 3-point shot with 6 seconds remaining.

Canyons dropped to 12-14, 3-6 in conference play.

Ventura (22-5, 7-2) rebounded from successive conference losses, but Coach Phil Mathews remains concerned.

“Our shooting is still horrible,” Mathews said. “This win was very important. We did not want this thing to snowball on us.”

Clark led all scorers with 28 points. Deon Myricks added 22 points for Canyons and Allbritton had 14 points.

For Ventura, Clarence Lamb scored 13 points, Betton had 12 and Dave Heckmann added 11. Parker led the Pirates with 9 rebounds.