LBCC’s women’s basketball team defeated Porterville College 73-50 in their first home game of the season Tuesday night after a stellar 28-point performance from reigning South Coast Conference Player of the Year Brillana Boyd.
“I think we did really good, we had good energy. Of course there’s always room for improvement but we had great energy today and that got us this win,” Boyd said.
The victory snapped the Vikings’ two-game losing streak and improved their record to 3-3.
Freshman center Taylah Paepule recorded her first double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds in only 21 minutes of play.
Kimberly Cruz-Martinez, a sophomore who earned a first-team All-Conference selection last season, contributed with a game-high 12 assists as well as 8 points and 4 rebounds.
After a dominant 2023-24 season which led to a South Coast Conference Championship, Cruz-Martinez said the expectations for this team aren’t any different.
“We have high expectations this season honestly because we have a wonderful group this year and everybody understands that we’re all trying to win at the end of the day and trying to get a ring,” Cruz-Martinez said.
Serving as the new head coach for the team this season is Dominic Freeman, an LBCC Alum as well as a former assistant coach for the women’s basketball team.
Even though Coach Freeman is facing a lot of pressure to get the program their fifth consecutive South Coast Conference Division Championship, he said he’s excited for the journey ahead.
“I’m just super geeked to be back at Long Beach City College. My mindset is to elevate this program. It’s been really good the last few years and honestly they had a really good program last year that did really well and now it’s trying to get past the Elite 8 and continue to elevate the girls not just on the court but off the court as well,” Freeman said.
This year, the Vikings have 6 returning players and 6 freshmen. Cruz-Martinez said a huge difference between this year’s team and last year’s is that they’re focusing on building more team chemistry.
She said the team goes out of their way to hang out with each other off the court and they even stay after practice to help each other grow and become better players.
“We tried to get our chemistry early this season because last year we didn’t catch on until later down the season during playoffs, but now this year we’re having better chemistry and there’s no bad energy or anything like that at all. I feel like now we’re just growing as one team instead of individually,” Cruz-Martinez said.
The next home game for the Vikings will be on Dec. 3 when they take on Ventura College at 5 pm.