Sluggish Ventura Wards Off Pasadena : College basketball: Top-seeded Pirates shoot poorly in 73-59 first-round regional playoff win over 32nd-seeded Lancers.

Ventura College was given a playoff scare to remember Saturday night--and it wasn’t even delivered by the Pirates’ opponent.

Ventura, the No. 1-seeded team in the 32-team Southern California regional playoffs, escaped with a sloppy 73-59 first-round victory over visiting Pasadena City, the 32nd-seeded team.

Ventura’s 15th consecutive win was enough to put the Pirates in Wednesday’s second round. But it wasn’t enough to draw any rave reviews from Coach Philip Mathews.

“I told (the players) that if they were happy with their play tonight they would get beat Wednesday,” Mathews said. “I don’t think they were focused like they should be. We played well defensively but we didn’t play well offensively.”

Ventura swingman Reggie Phillips scored a team-high 18 points and teammate Michael Tate added 10 rebounds, but the Pirates (30-4) made just 21 of 66 shots from the field and only five of 16 from beyond the three-point stripe.

Ventura also committed 20 turnovers.

“We did play kind of a sloppy game,” said the 6-foot-5 Tate, who scored eight points and blocked three shots. “Too many turnovers and missed layups.”

But the Pirates’ daunting pressure defense came through like it has all season; the harassed Lancers (15-16) committed 28 turnovers.

“It’s just good pressure defense,” said Pasadena City guard Don Mitchell, who led his team with 18 points and nine rebounds. “We just couldn’t close the gap closer than 11 points.”

Pasadena, which finished 1-7 in the South Coast Conference, cut its deficit to 11 and 12 points several times in the second half. But Ventura managed to take a 69-50 lead with 2:31 remaining.

“We should have scored, realistically, 100 points tonight,” Mathews said.

Lamarr Smith scored 10 points, including two three-point baskets, and Donyhel Johnson came off the bench to score six points and grab five rebounds for Ventura.

In a wild and aggressive first half that featured a combined 22 turnovers, Ventura built a 36-23 behind the streak shooting of Smith and Phillips.

The Pirates, who made four three-point shots in the first half but only 14 of 35 field-goal attempts, opened a 29-13 lead with just under six minutes to play before Pasadena went on a 7-0 scoring run to stay within striking distance.