Pirates Rally Past Oxnard for 11th Straight W

The VC men's basketball team used a 55-point second half to rally past Oxnard 90-81 Wednesday for their 11th straight victory and sixth straight in Western State Conference play. Snookey Wigington put together another strong effort with 22 points while Jerimiyah Smith and Kam'Ron Cigar added 17 and 14, respectively. Gaston Zumaya came off the bench to record 10 points in the triumph as the No. 8-ranked Pirates completed an undefeated first round of WSC play.

Ventura (19-3, 6-0) shot just 37 percent from the floor in the opening 20 minutes as the Condors hung tough with the conference frontrunners. Wigington's 3-pointer with 12:37 remaining in the first half put VC ahead 20-15, but the Condors came back with a 7-2 run to knot the score at 22 four minutes later. OC hit a three to go ahead 31-29 at the 4:09 mark and held the advantage, even after Baron Bellamy scored a lay-up to close the period to pull Ventura within 37-35 at intermission.

Oxnard extended their margin to five with a triple to open the second half before a 5-0 run by Wigington tied the game at 40.  The Condor lead stretched to 51-44 at the 15:03 mark before VC came alive with an 8-0 run. Gaston started things by assisting a lay-up by Jeremiah Wilson then made a pair of free throws. Gaston continued the run with a defensive rebound and coact-to-coast lay-up and Dabe Princewill had a steal and lay-up to put Ventura ahead 52-51.

The game went back-and-forth for the next several minutes until Smith hit a shot from range to break a 66-66 tie to put VC ahead for good with 6:20 on the clock. Wilson connected for three and Cigar for two a minute later to extend the advantage to 75-69 and Wigington's three maintained an 82-75 margin with 2:14 remaining. Wigington scored two more deuces and Smith made a pair of free throws and a lay-up to set the final 90-81 count.

Smith led the rebound charge with nine boards and Bellamy pulled down six caroms as the Pirates outboarded the Condors 38-28.

Ventura will next host Los Angeles Pierce on Saturday Jan. 31 at 3:00 pm.