Sleepwalking Ventura Can Only Dream of State Title

It’s only appropriate for the Ventura women’s basketball team to dream about appearing in today’s State championship final.

After all, the Pirates practically slept through the second half of their semifinal game against Harbor and lost Friday, 81-65, to the defending state champions at Orange Coast College.

“We picked a bad time to play a bad half,” Ventura Coach Ned Mircetic said. “I don’t know what else to say about it. It was horrible.”

When the teams met early in the season at the Chaffey tournament, Harbor (32-6) won by only one point.

On Friday the Pirates (28-3) looked decent in the first half but faltered badly in the second. They led, 31-29, at the break and did a good job of keeping up with an aggressive and much-quicker Harbor team.

But the Pirates scored only one basket in the first six minutes of the second half, while committing a series of turnovers and other errors.

“Some of our bad play you have to attribute to their great play,” Mircetic said.

“They did a great job. They made offensive rebounds and three-pointers and they just did it all.”

Harbor, one of the state’s top scoring teams with an average of 83 points per game, took its first lead about one minute into the second half and never turned back.

The Seahawks opened the half with a 19-3 run and with a little more than nine minutes left to play led by 15 points.

Harbor also applied tremendous defensive pressure, forcing Ventura to take bad shots from everywhere.

“Our press really came through for us,” Harbor Coach Loretta Thomas said.

“I think basically that was the difference tonight.”

Sophomore forward Rayjanette Lampkin led Harbor with 24 points.

Freshman guard Tori Anderson led the Pirates with 16 points and sophomore forward Julie Hardy, who fouled out with about four minutes remaining in the game, added 14.