Cyp City Wins OEC Crown

Cypress College imposed its will on Orange Coast with a 30-point blowout 

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Sam Soria

Costa Mesa, Calif. - The Chargers knew going into Friday's season finale road matchup against Orange Coast College (7-12, 3-9), that they needed a win to guarantee a share of this year's women's basketball Orange Empire Conference championship. With a loss, the Chargers (20-8, 10-2) might be out of the playoff picture all together.

The Chargers took control right from the start, and left nothing to chance on Friday night by pulling off their most dominating victory - in their biggest game of the year - with a 58-28 rout of the Pirates at Peterson Gym in Costa Mesa, Calif.

Freshmen Sama Soria (14 points, 4 rebounds) and Sloan Turner (12 points, 7 rebounds) helped lead Cypress to its fourth Orange Empire Conference crown in school history, and third under head coach Margaret Mohr.

After winning their first women's basketball league championship in 1988, the Chargers went through an 18-year title drought, before capturing a second conference crown in 2006 - the season following Cypress College's first CCCAA state championship in women's basketball. Three year's later, Mohr's Chargers were at it again with an OEC championship in 2009. Right on schedule in 2012, Cypress finished atop the league standings once again after another three-year hietis from the OEC title chase.

The Chargers came ready to play at both ends of the court on Friday, in a wire-to-wire victory that began with Chelsea Walton scoring the first five points of the game. Walton knocked down a three to open the scoring, then connected on a pair of free throws to put Cypress up 5-0. Tera Salhus chipped in with a bucket to make it a 7-0 contest before Coast found its first basket of the night.

OCC made it 9-4 with 13:14 left to play in the first half, but couldn't score again on Cypress' suffocating press for more than eight minutes after that, as the Charger defense clamped down on the Pirates with a 10-1 run that made it a 19-5 game. With time running down, Turner hit a buzzer-beating jumper to close out an 11-5 Cypress run, and send the Chargers into halftime with a commanding 30-10 lead over Coast.

Coming out of the break, the two squads traded baskets for much of the second half. Sophomore captain Donna Ka' anoi hit a layup with 15 minutes on the clock to put the Chargers up by 21 points. Ten minutes later, Walton found Breanna Patton cutting to the basket for a layup that stretched Cypress' lead to 51-26. With less than a minute on the clock, Doreen Lopez hit a couple of free throws to close out the scoring for Cypress College, and secure a decisive 30-point victory over Orange Coast to gear up for another run to the Final Four.


Cypress College's sister school, Fullerton College, made it an All North Orange County OEC Championship after beating Irvine Valley 68-40 at home on Friday. The Chargers and Hornets will share 2012 Orange Empire Conference Co-Championship honors after each finished the regular season tied with identical 10-2 records in league play.

When the CCCAA playoff matchups are announced on Monday afternoon, Cypress College will earn the higher seed over Fullerton College, after sweeping the Hornets in two regular season meetings this year.

The Chargers playoff bracket and first round matchup will be posted on the Cypress College women's basketball homepage: http://www.cypresscollege.edu/wbasketball on Monday afternoon, and will be posted on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/cypresschargers  ... and Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cypresschargers first.

Chargers Lose Second Straight to Lasers

Cypress College's only two conference losses this season have been to Irvine Valley.

Chelsea Walton

Irvine, Calif. - For the second straight game, Cypress College couldn't stop Irvine Valley when it needed to and paid the price with another Orange Empire Conference defeat at the hands of the Lasers. IVC had five players score eight points or more in the 69-58 OEC victory.

In the first meeting of the year between these two squads all the way back on November 13, in the Chargers third game of the season, Cypress blew out IVC 72-46 at the Pasadena Tournament in a non-league game. In the next two, the Lasers are 2-0 with a 66-60 victory at Cypress in the first round of OEC play, and the 11-point win this time around.

Sophomore Melissa Jensen finished with game-highs in points (18) and rebounds (8). Chelsea Walton added 15 points, six assists and four rebounds. Sloan Turner tied Jensen for the game-high in rebounding (8), and game-leading three blocks.

Despite shooting 40 percent from the floor in the second half, Cypress wasn't able to get stops against the Lasers after the break. After going into the locker room tied at 24-24, IVC came out on a mission to hit 15 of 27 shots from the floor - and 13 of 15 from the free throw line.

The loss puts Cypress in a must-win situation against Orange Coast College on the road Friday. Irvine Valley has to play at Fullerton in their season finale to earn a share of the OEC crown. If Fullerton completes the season sweep of IVC at home, the Hornets will share the title with Cypress as long as the Chargers get it done at Coast.

Chargers Rout Dons at Home

Fourteen Chargers score in 75-54 win over Santa Ana.

Denshay Wallace

Cypress, Calif. - Cypress College completed a season sweep over Santa College with a runaway 75-54 victory at home.

The Charger (19-8, 9-1) press was too much for the Dons (6-19, 1-9) to handle on offense, while Cypress' balanced scoring attack had SAC guessing all night long.

Cypress College took control of the game right from the start and never took its foot off the gas. By halftime, the Chargers were comfortably ahead 41-38. After the break, Santa Ana wasn't able to fair much better, as Cypress continued to add to its lead. The Chargers got scoring help from 14 of 16 players in the 21-point blowout.

A big part of the win had a lot to do with Cypress' relentless defensive pressure on the ball, which forced the Dons into 18 turnovers for the game. Sophomore Donna Ka' anoi had a game-high four steals for the Chargers, while three others tied for second on the team in steals with three apiece.

Denshay Wallace paced Cypress College's scoring attack with 12 points, that included two from downtown. Samantha Soria chipped in nine points, while Nikki Perkins and Ivory Hallstein each finished with eight points apiece. Wallace had a good day on the glass as well, finishing one rebound behind Sloan Turner who had a team-high eight boards.

Santa Ana's Anna Nguyen led all scorers with a game-high 20 points on 6 of 13 shooting. Nguyen shot 50 percent from beyond the arc after knocking down 4 of 8 shot attempts. Janelle Flores added 13 points for the Dons, but none of the five other scorers for SAC got over eight points in the game.