Pirates magic season ends with playoff loss to Cougars

SANTA CLARITA -- The Orange Coast College women's basketball team saw its inspiring 2021-22 season come to a sudden end with a 69-60 loss to College of the Canyons in the second round of the Southern California Regional Playoffs on Thursday night.

It was a loss that ended the Pirates' season shorter than they would have liked, but with a 20-9 record (first 20-win season since 2010-11) and their first trip to the postseason in five years, Thursday's setback will not tarnish the overall success this team has achieved.

On paper, the matchup looked like a dual between a pair of all-state standouts with OCC's Alexis Legan on one side and Canyons' LuLu Salloom on the other. Both did their thing with Legan leading Coast with 18 points and 10 rebounds and Salloom scoring 18 points and grabbing 12 boards. 

But the difference for the Cougars came from their other starters, led by guard Justice Walters, who played all 40 minutes and scored a team-best 19 points with five rebounds and six assists. Monique Febles added 16 points and Malia Semana tossed in 10 points to go along with five assists.

OCC's Annie Trinh added 16 points, while Savannah Seiler came through with 12 points and eight rebounds.

Both teams traded leads early on before an 8-0 run late in the first quarter put OCC in front 21-15. Coast was a perfect 3-for-3 from downtown in that quarter and hit 60% of their shots overall (9-of-15).

It became a different story for the Pirates' offense the rest of the way as they struggled shooting over the final three quarters, hitting just 28% from the floor (13-of-46) and 27% from 3-point range (5-of-18).

"I spoke to (former OCC head coach) Mike Thornton before the game and he said that everything has to go perfectly in order to go all the way ... hit the tough shots, timely stops, good calls from the officials, extra pass at the right time, etc.," head coach Sammy Doucette said. "Well nothing went perfectly for us. We battled hard, but we just could not get it done.

"It stinks going out the way we did, but in no way at all does this loss tarnish the rest of the season or define my team. I am beyond proud of them. Look at what they did ... we struggled in the fall showcase and then went on to a second-place finish in arguably the toughest conference in the state after a two-win season. I will hold onto that a lot longer than I'll hold onto this loss."