Women’s Basketball: Turnovers costly in 72-60 LBCC loss to No. 4 East Los Angeles

32 turnovers were too much for the Long Beach City College women's basketball team to overcome as the Vikings suffered a 72-60 South Coast Conference interdivision loss to visiting No. 4 state-ranked East Los Angeles College on Friday night at the Hall of Champions Gym.

With the loss, Long Beach dropped to 12-8 overall. The Vikings are back in action on Wednesday (Jan 28) at 7 p.m. when they travel to El Camino College Compton Center for a SCC interdivision game.

Long Beach jumped out to an early 11-4 lead after a layup by sophomore Darshana Taafua (Western HS) at the 15:35 mark in the first. Olivia Ochoa's layup with 10:10 to go in the first got East Los Angeles within one before she made a pair of free throws at 9:34 to give the Huskies the lead for good.

LBCC committed 17 turnovers in the first half and trailed 34-28 at the break. The Vikings got as close as four points, 43-39, after freshman Imani Johnson's layup, but East Los Angeles got consecutive three-pointers from Ochoa and Kristina Tatikian to put the game out of reach.

Taafua led the Vikings in the loss with 22 points to go with seven rebounds. Freshman Lupe Cruz (South East HS) totaled 12 rebounds while sophomore Jessica Njoku (Narbonne HS) had eight points and eight rebounds.

Ochoa paced East Los Angeles (20-2) with 23 points and six steals while Jocelyne Diaz had 15 points and 10 rebounds.