Traveling to Santa Barbara the Ventura College men's basketball team rode the shoulders of a pair of offensive performances to pick up a come from behind 96-91 victory. Elijah Brown who has twice gone for 30+ points this year went off from the field and dropped a career high 43 points in the win. Trevor LaCount added 22 points of his own. The pair accounted for 65 of the Pirates 96 total points.
Ventura (13-8, 3-2) coming off a pair of conference wins looked to pick up their third straight with a tough road test. Facing off with SBCC and trying to stay with first place Cuesta and second place Moorpark, the Pirates needed to pull off the victory.
The Pirates came out slow in the first half falling down 14-9 with just over 15 minutes to play in the half. VC was able to go on a run outscoring SBCC 13-4 over the next three minutes of play to take a 22-18 advantage when Jacob Alonzo hit from 3-point range and converted his free throw. The Vaqueros though quickly responded with their own run to tie the game at 25 and then eventually pull away from the Pirates 37-33 with 5:50 to play in the half. SBCC continued to widen the gap as the half drew to a close they held a commanding 50-41 lead over the Pirates.
With work to do the Pirates turned to their top offensive performer of the season Brown. Having already scored 19 points with three rebounds in the first half, Brown was just getting warmed up for his second half fireworks. Scoring early and often in the opening of the half Brown was able to get the Pirates on a 18-9 run over the first 5:23 of game play in the second half to tie the game at 59. LaCount got in on the mix over the start of the half and the pair continued to attack SBCC from the inside and the outside. When LaCount scored off a Jalon Wilson assist Ventura took their first lead since early in the first half of play at 61-59 and never looked back. VC was able able to get up by as much as six points over the Vaqueros over the final 13 mintues of play and never really allowed Santa Barbara any chance to make a run at closing the gap thanks to the pair of Brown and LaCount.
Wilson added 11 points of his own for the game and picked up one assist and two steals for the Pirates. Ventura worked hard on the boards out-rebounding the Vaqueros 44-27 in the game including 17 offensive rebounds for VC. Brown and Jamal Lewis each pulled down eight rebounds while LaCount picked up six for the game. Ventura rebounded from their first half shooting struggles to finish at 51.4% for the game and 41.7% from 3-point range.
The win sets the Pirates up for their Wednesday Jan. 27 7:00 pm match-up against rival Oxnard College at the Ventura College Athletic Event Center. After that the Pirates will go out on the road Saturday Jan. 30 and travel to face first place Cuesta for a 7:00 pm game, while looking to avenge their conference opening defeat to the Cougars.