Women's Basketball: Vikings bring home IVC tournament championship

The Long Beach City College women''s basketball continued its impressive run to start the season and closed the weekend with a 54-43 win over host Irvine Valley College to win the 2012 IVC Tournament championship.

Freshman Talia Rayford had an impressive all-around night in the final win by totaling five points, 13 rebounds, six assists, three blocks and three steals on her way to being named the tournament's most valuable player. Over three games in Irvine, she averaged 9.7 points, 10.3 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.7 blocks and 3.0 steals per game.

Freshman Shakeena Benton had 13 points, five rebounds, four assists and four steals while sophomore Kaaron King chipped in nine points, 10 rebounds and five steals for the Vikings in the victory.

Freshman Jasmine Williams, who had a 16-point effort in Long Beach's 70-61 win over Chaffey College in the semifinals on Friday, was also picked to the all-tournament team.

Long Beach City won with defense. Irvine Valley shot just 28.6 percent (14 of 49) from the field in the contest and the Lasers committed 26 turnovers.

Irvine Valley jumped out to an early lead and was up, 13-11, with 5:30 left in the first half. But Long Beach City out-scored Irvine Valley, 17-4, the rest of the half and carried a 28-17 lead into the intermission. Freshman Janissa Zagal came off the bench, hit two three-pointers and scored eight points during that stretch for the Vikings.

LBCC took its largest lead of the game at 31-17 early in the second half after a free throw by King with 18:45 left. The Lasers didn't go away, however. Irvine Valley went on a 13-1 run keyed by two lay-ups by Shomari McCorkle and two three-pointers by Amber Wharton, to pull within 32-30 with 12:43 left.

Irvine Valley hung around, staying within four to six points of Long Beach until the Vikings pulled away in the final five minutes. Back-to-back lay-ups by King put Long Beach City ahead, 47-37, with 4:43 to play. And two free throws by Benton with 4:02 to go made it 49-37.

Long Beach, now 7-1 overall, returns to action on Friday (Dec. 14) when it opens South Coast Conference play against Cerritos College at 6 p.m. The contest will be played at Irvine Valley College due to construction at Cerritos' home gym.