Harbor Women Finally Overcome Chaffey, 71-57

The Harbor College women’s basketball team was not at its best in a first-round Southern California Regional playoff game Wednesday night. The Seahawks played sloppily for a half and shot poorly from the field for most of the game.

But the Seahawks, winners of the Southern California Athletic Conference, came through in the end for a 71-57 victory over visiting Chaffey College.

The seventh-seeded Seahawks improved to 26-6 and 10th-seeded Chaffey, the Foothill League’s runner-up, finished 27-7.

Harbor will play second-seeded L.A. Valley College on Saturday at Valley.

On Wednesday, Harbor got in trouble midway through the first half when Chaffey slowed the pace. The Seahawks hurt themselves with a series of turnovers and missed shots.

“We want up-tempo and they want to slow it down,” Harbor Coach Louie Nelson said. “They took away our strength when they did that.”

Harbor scored only one field goal--a three-point basket by Bridgete Williams--in the last five minutes and 44 seconds of the first half. The Seahawks held a 31-28 lead at halftime.

The Seahawks went on a 6-0 run to grab a 55-46 lead with six minutes left to play. Harbor broke the game open, 66-52, after scoring nine unanswered points with 50 seconds remaining.

Co-SCAC player of the year Kim Young scored eight points during that run. The sophomore forward scored 12 of her 26 points in the final 3:44 of the game, despite picking up her fourth foul early in the second half.

“She’s a great player,” Chaffey Coach Chris Stephens said. “Their quickness is going to cause everybody some problems.”

Harbor freshman guard Bridgete Williams also had 26 points.

Harbor has never been to the state playoffs in women’s basketball, and before this season never had a winning season in the sport.