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The PCC women’s basketball team was unable to contain East Los Angeles College’s penetration offense and fell to their SCC-North rivals 58-45 in the third round of the playoffs.

The Huskies dominated on both ends of the floor throughout the game and held the Lancers scoreless for minutes on end on multiple occasions.

Though Pasadena played hard to fight back after being behind, it wasn’t enough to come out with the victory.

Head coach Joe Peron said his team played in spurts and it affected them.

“We started off okay then we went to a rushing slump, just rushing things,” Peron said. “It allowed them to get going and build their confidence. Once they got going, we didn’t stop them. They went into their big who had a great game. It wasn’t even the threes, it was penetration and layups. But I’m happy for the girls. They still played hard. Our mistakes were just more than what we needed.”

The Huskies’ largest lead, 20 points, came with two minutes left in the third quarter but was short-lived as Pasadena cut it down.

After a full court press was instilled, they were able to get the deficit to 10 by forcing turnovers and bad shots.

Point guard Judith Espinoza said their biggest problem was fouling on the drive.

“I think we came out good but then we started fouling,” Espinoza said. “We wanted to stop their threes and their drive. We did well stopping their threes but we kept letting them drive and fouling. That was why they were in the game, aside from our shots not going in.”

Pasadena went on a small run in the first quarter, taking an 8-point lead seven minutes into the game. But their constant turnovers and inability to pull down defensive rebounds plagued them down the line.

The Huskies went on an 8-0 run to close the gap at halftime and continued their run to take a double-digit lead midway through the third quarter.

Ella Stepanian was the only Lancer to finish the game with double-digit points. She said the team just didn’t make the right adjustments.

“An adjustment would be to keep them from penetrating because that really hurt us,” Stepanian said. “They got most of their points from driving down the middle and we just didn’t adjust that. In the second half, we came out a little better on defense but on offense, we were stagnant and didn’t do much.”

Peron said he’s proud of the team nonetheless and said they had a great season.

The team committed 17 turnovers to ELAC’s 14 and shot 26 percent from the field. ELAC didn’t shoot much better but had better quality shots.

The Lancers have five sophomores moving on from PCC including their captain, Judith Espinoza.

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