The LBCC women’s basketball team won round one of the SoCal regionals against Ventura 68-50 on Wednesday, with Mya Barnes leading the way with 15 points and six rebounds.
The game started off even, with each team trading blows, but in the second half, the Vikings started to push ahead.
The Vikings added 20 points in the third to get a 37- 29 lead with the help of Devoni Ray’s six points to make it 57-40.
“The same thing we were doing in the first half, attacking the paint, attacking the rim, not settling for jumpshots. We only shot four threes in the first half, second we shot a little more threes but we are being more consistent at having second half starts,” Vikings’ head coach Dominic Freeman said.
Freeman thinks the Vikings did most of their dirty work in the paint, which was their point of emphasis for the game.
“We want to be greedy at the rim and we don’t want to settle, we knew they didn’t have a lot of interior so we wanted to keep attacking that and put pressure on them and know that they were short on numbers so we want to get them in foul trouble,” Vikings’ head coach Freeman said.
Barnes, who was the game’s leading point scorer, gave her mindset before the game.
“I was pretty nervous, not gonna lie but I was focusing on one thing at a time, defense, offense, rebounding, whatever it was,” Barnes said.
Vikings’ player Kyla Sawall did not get a lot of points but worked hard to get three rebounds and two assists, doing all the dirty work that does not show up on the stat sheet.
“Just be great on defense, defense is my game so just do what I do best and being productive on defense to help my team out on offense,” said Sawall.
Vikings’ player Amy Rubio had seven points, eight rebounds, two assists, and a steal, but she was shining more on defense, helping the Vikings in their full-court press.
“Defense is like extra points, if you get a stop you get an extra point, if you get rebounds it’s an extra point. I feel like defense really sets the tone,” Rubio said.
The Vikings went on to round two against Cypress and lost 51-42 on Saturday, ending their season with a 20-10 record.
