Ventura Clocks Irvine Valley, 88-61

VENTURA —  This time, the clock was clean.

Ventura College, leaving no room for controversy, hammered Irvine Valley, 88-61, in a Southern California Regional third-round game Friday night at Ventura to reach the state women’s basketball championships for the fourth year in a row.

Ventura (34-1) opens defense of its consecutive state titles on Thursday in the quarterfinals at Concordia University in Irvine.

The semifinals on Friday and the final on Saturday will be played at UC Irvine.

Ventura extended its winning streak to 33 games and playoff string to 12. The Pirates are 105-2 in the past three seasons.

“Our mental and emotional preparation to play tonight was just excellent,” said Ned Mircetic, Ventura coach. “We were fast and we rebounded well against a great rebounding team.”

The Pirates, fresh from a controversial, 74-73, victory over L.A. Valley in the second round on Tuesday, took apart Irvine Valley (24-8) from the start and left no room for questions.

Against Valley, when a timekeeper’s error gave the Pirates precious extra seconds and they capitalized to make the winning free throws with three seconds left, Ventura was fortunate.

The Pirates, who used a different timekeeper, were simply unstoppable against Irvine Valley. Ventura also defeated Irvine Valley, 82-58, Dec. 20.

“I think tonight we were better than we were back in December,” Mircetic said.

The Lasers, who arrived late, didn’t get a warm welcome from Ventura.

The Pirates went on an 11-0 run to break a 4-4 tie, holding Irvine Valley scoreless for nearly eight minutes. Forward Heather Cunningham scored on a short jumper with 10:58 to play in the first half to cut the deficit to 15-6 and break the stranglehold.

Cunningham scored her team’s first 15 points but did not score again in the first half. She finished with 29 points.

Ventura’s sophomore forwards Lynda Amari and Amirah Leonard matched Cunningham almost basket for basket. Leonard had 18 points in the first half and Amari had 18 in the second half, each finishing with 24 points.

“It was our last home game for the sophomores and we wanted to win,” Amari said.