Too Little Too Late

Glendora, CA - It took until the third quarter for the Citrus College Women's Basketball team to find a rhythm in their crucial Western State Conference South Division contest with Los Angeles Valley College on Saturday night. By then though it was too little too late, as the Owls suffered their worst offensive showing of the season in a 48-52 loss to the visiting Monarchs.

 Things didn't get off to the terrible start that the first half ended up being. The Owls even led 8-4 early after a layup by sophomore Tiffany Villaruz and a pair of free-throws from sophomore Allison Zalin gave the Owls a four-point cushion. That would be the last points for the Owls though for the rest of the first quarter as they went 0 for 5 from the field and more disturbingly committed five turnovers to find themselves trailing 11-8 after one quarter of action.

In the second, things didn't get any better for the Owls as they were outscored 16-5 to head into the break down 14, 27-13. Citrus would shoot a paltry 16.7% from the field in the first half, and hit an uncharacteristic zero three pointers, and committed 75% of their total turnovers of the game in that first 20 minutes of play.

The Owls would open up the third quarter, by scoring the first four points finally getting some momentum on their side after a pair of free-throws from sophomore Janae Chamois and a jumper by sophomore Natalie Gutierrez. The Owls would go on to score 19 points in the third frame, holding the Monarchs to 12 points to pull to within seven, 32-39 at the end of the third.

Valley would come out in the fourth on a 8-2 run to push their lead back to 13 with 6:04 to go. That's when Citrus would make their final run, going on an 11-0 spurt started by a jumper by Zalin and ended by a layup and then a possession later by the back end of two free-throws by Gutierrez to make it 45-47 with 48 seconds to go.

LA Valley would rally with a pair of free-throws, but Citrus cut the deficit to one after a triple by freshman Joy Adlao with 35 seconds to go. That would be it though for the Owls as the Monarchs scored on a jumper with 13 seconds to go, and the Owls missed a game tying three with four seconds left sealing their fate against LA Valley.

Gutierrez would end up with a team high 14 points on the night, while Chamois added 11. The difference may have been the rebounding differential, with Citrus getting out rebounded by 13 and allowing 10 more second chance points then they were able to score for themselves.

With the loss, Citrus drops to 16-9 overall and 8-3 in WSC South play. More importantly Citrus falls into a three-way tie with LA Valley College and Antelope Valley College for second place in the Western State Conference South Division. With two games go in the regular season the Owls now face a pair of must win games in order to qualify for the 2016 CCCAA post-season. That journey starts on on Wednesday when they travel to Glendale College for a 5:00 PM tip-off.