Women’s basketball comes in third in Desert Tourney

After starting its season with a tournament championship and an early South Coast Conference win against Long Beach City College, the PCC women’s basketball team settled for a third place finish in Thanksgiving weekend’s Desert Tournament.”[That was] probably the first [third place] finish in ten years,” said Head Coach Joe Peron, who was not very happy with the finish. “That was a new feeling.”

The tournament, held at College of the Desert, began for the Lancers on Nov. 26 when they smashed Victor Valley College, 82-59.

The sophomores led the attack, with guard Anna Shahinian scoring 25 total points, followed by center Dominique Scott with 16 points and guard Stephanie DeFrance with 12 points.

The Lancers ran into trouble against Arizona’s Yavapai College in the semi-finals on Nov. 27, and lost, 79-70.

“[Yavapai] was a better team [compared to the other two teams the Lancers faced] and we just made quite a few mistakes in crunch time,” said Coach Peron. “It was a good game but we just didn’t execute the things we needed to at the times we needed to.”

The Lancers’ scoring was more subdued, with Scott scoring 13 and DeFrance scoring 11.

“We had a real bad shooting day that day,” said Peron. “It just comes down to reading the defense that you’re playing against and making the right decision at the right time, which we didn’t do during that game.”

Because of their loss to Yavapai, the Lancers played LBCC, a team they defeated the previous week by a score of 73-34 for their first SCC win of the season.

PCC dominated once again and routed the Vikings, 71-29, in the Nov. 28 contest for third place.

Shahinian and Scott once again led the scoring with 13 and 11 points, respectively.

Despite the Lancers’ third-place showing at the Desert Tournament, Peron was not satisfied and believes the team still has some things to work on.

“We work on our offense, we work on our defense, we work on our shooting.it’s just a matter of when it clicks so that they can play at the level that I want them to play,” said Peron. “We’re still learning how to get comfortable with our offense and our defense. We got a little better this tournament, but we’re just trying to speed up the process.

“It’s just a matter of doing things under pressure,” Peron concluded. “You’re going to do something, I just need you to do the right things.”

The Lancers (6-1, 1-0) will face El Camino College in El Camino on Friday at 5 p.m. in their second SCC game.