Moorpark hands Vaqueros first home loss, 59-58

SBCC nearly erased a nine-point deficit in the last two minutes on Wednesday night but Moorpark held on for a 59-58 women's basketball win in the Sports Pavilion.

The Vaqueros (12-8, 2-2 WSC North) were down 32-26 at the half and trailed by as many as 14 in the fourth quarter. Elise Munoz-Albanez scored 14 of her game-high 20 points in the second half for the Raiders (15-8, 3-1).

Destinee King topped Santa Barbara with 17 points, 10 rebounds, three steals and two blocks. Alyssa Cosio added 12 points and five rebounds for the Vaqueros, who suffered their first home loss (5-1). Destiny Renteria was 3-6 from downtown and scored nine points.

Moorpark won the shooting battle (40 to 36 percent) and the rebounds (43-34) while hitting 16-of-20 free throws, compared to just 3-8 for the Vaqueros.

"We showed a lot of character by coming back from nine down late in the game," said coach Sandrine Krul. "We just needed to get to the line more.

"I'm never mad or upset when we are competing and we competed when we were on the verge of getting blown out. This team has a lot of heart. We have to figure out how to play smart with that heart so we don't go down 14 points."

Santa Barbara fell behind 56-47 on a layup by Munoz-Albanez with 2:08 remaining. Stella Dulay and Renteria nailed 3-point buckets from the right and left side, respectively, and King made a layup to cut the margin to a single point (57-56) with 33 seconds left.

The Vaqueros were forced to foul and Munoz-Albanez hit the second of two free throws with 15.5 seconds left. Moorpark only had one team foul, so they started fouling the Vaqueros with three fouls in less than six seconds (the two-shot bonus kicks in when you commit five fouls in a quarter). The Vaqueros in-bounded with 9.9 ticks left but were called for traveling at the 6.7-second mark.

Kasey Nilsen made two free throws to boost the Raider lead to 59-55 with 5.9 seconds left. Dulay heaved in a 31-foot 3-pointer at the buzzer to cut the final deficit to a single point.

The Vaqueros travel to first-place Ventura (19-5, 4-0), ranked No. 6 in Southern Cal, on Saturday for a 7 p.m. game.