Ventura Falls Flat in Men’s State Final, Losing to Columbia : College basketball: Top-ranked Pirates shoot poorly from field and fade in the second half of 97-88 loss.

At a shoot-around Saturday morning, the Ventura College men’s basketball team listened to what Coach Philip Mathews figured would be a prescription for success that night in their biggest game of the season.

“If you don’t have turnovers and if we make our free throws, we’ll win,” Mathews said.

The Pirates followed the plan well, but forgot to pick up the slack in other areas and lost to Columbia, 97-88, in the junior college state championship game in front of 2,400 at the University of San Francisco.

It was the second consecutive disappointment for Ventura (37-2) in the state championships. The Pirates were eliminated in the semifinals last season.

“We picked a hell of a game not to play well,” Mathews said. “We were out of sync tonight. They flat out beat us.”

Ventura, which went into the game ranked No. 1 in California, made 80% of its free throws (16 of 20) and committed only six turnovers. But poor field-goal shooting, particularly from three-point range, cost the Pirates.

The Pirates shot 44.6% from the field and made only 21.4% of their three-point opportunities. Columbia made 53.2% of its shots and hit nine of 12 three-pointers (40.9%).

Columbia (32-2), which finished the season with a 17-game winning streak, took advantage of excellent performances by guards Tyrone Latimer and Tony Sanders to secure its first state title. The Claim Jumpers were runners-up to El Camino in 1988.

Latimer and Sanders, both 6-foot-1 freshmen, scored 37 and 20 points. Latimer had 18 in the first half and Sanders had 12.

“We knew we had to get (Sanders) involved in the offense,” Columbia Coach Denny Aye said.

That they did.

With the score tied, 13-13, early in the first half, the Claim Jumpers went on a 10-2 run sparked by consecutive three-pointers by Andre Watson and Sanders, and a basket on an offensive rebound by Manjue Sampson.

Columbia moved ahead, 30-18, with 12:10 to play in the half on a fast-break layup by Latimer.

But Ventura, as it has done often throughout the season, struck back quickly. The Pirates went on a 10-0 spurt to close the deficit to 30-28 with 10 minutes left in the half.

Guard Joey Ramirez, playing his best game of the tournament, led the Ventura comeback with five points, including a three-pointer. Ramirez, who finished with 19 points, had 15 in the first half.

Ventura took the lead, 43-42, on two free throws by Alfred Kennedy, but Columbia surged ahead, 54-49, on a layup by Latimer with 33 seconds to play in the half.

Freshman forward Brandon Jessie hit a turnaround jumper at the buzzer to cut the Pirate deficit to 54-51 at halftime. Jessie once again played solidly, finishing with a team-high 31 points and a game-high 11 rebounds.

But where Jessie and Ramirez were hitting their shots early, sophomores Calvin Curry and Stephane Brown were missing frequently. Curry, the team’s leading scorer in the first two tournament with a 25.5-point average, accounted for only 12 against Columbia. Brown had seven.

“We came out in the second half and we wanted to focus on getting the ball inside,” Mathews said. “We really took some out-of-character shots tonight.”

The Pirates could never get closer than three points in the second half, and trailed, 79-65, with 9:22 to play.

The loss snapped a 16-game wining streak for the Pirates.

Tournament Notes

Seven players concluded their careers at Ventura on Saturday: Guards Ade-Ajai Dotson, Donyhel Johnson, Brian Golden and Stephane Brown, and forwards Reggie Butts, Calvin Curry and Michael King. . . . Curry and Jessie were selected to the all-tournament team. . . . According to tournament officials, attendance for the Ventura games averaged 1,566. The average crowd for games not involving Ventura was 775. . . . The South defeated the North, 125-122, in the junior college all-star game that preceded the championship game. Curry and Brown had been selected to play on the South squad but did not participate because they were involved in the title game.