Ventura Back on the Winning Track, 69-59

Perhaps it was a feeling of uneasiness because of the absence of leading scorer Calvin Curry.

Maybe it was a hangover effect after its first loss two nights earlier against Santa Monica.

Whatever the reason, the Ventura College men’s basketball team took a long time getting untracked in Saturday night’s Western State Conference inter-division game against visiting College of the Canyons.

Ventura (22-1), the No. 1-ranked team in the state, trailed by a point at halftime and did not pull away for a 69-59 victory until there were less than two minutes to play.

Canyons (11-10) tied the score, 53-53, with 6 minutes 57 seconds left before Ventura went on an 11-2 run over the next 5 1/2 minutes to take a 64-55 lead with 1:08 remaining.

Stephane Brown (26 points, eight rebounds) began the Pirate surge with a running left-handed hook shot and Joey Ramirez (20 points, six assists) capped it by sinking two free throws.

Ramirez, who failed to score a point in the first half after missing all seven of his shots, also had a nifty 10-foot jump shot in the lane over 6-foot-9 Jason Joynes during the Pirate onslaught.

“Since Calvin was out, someone had to step up,” Brown said. “I was kind of waiting for my shot in the first half, but in the second, I was really trying to look for it.”

Curry, a 6-6 sophomore from Compton High who had been averaging 21 points a game, strained ligaments in his right knee against Santa Monica and is not expected to return until the end of the month.

With Curry out, Canyons packed the middle with a zone defense in the first half and it proved effective as Ventura shot a horrendous 10 of 38 (26.3%) from the field.

“I told them at halftime, ‘You guys are lucky to only be down by one,’ ” Ventura Coach Philip Mathews said. “If we had been on the road, we could have easily been down by 25 after shooting like that.”

“I felt like we played well defensively,” Canyons Coach Lee Smelser said. “Them not having (Curry) probably helped us, especially in the first half. But we just did not run our offensive execution very well in the second half and you have to do that in a tight ball game.”

Joynes scored a team-high 17 points for the Cougars and Rasaan Hall added 16, including 12 in the second half.

Sophomore guard Donyhel Johnson, who replaced Curry in the starting lineup, had 11 points and six assists for Ventura, which made only 23 of 67 shots from the field.