The ELAC Men’s (17-7, 4-2) and Women’s (10-15, 2-3) basketball teams split a double header against cross-county rivals the PCC Lancers in the ELAC Men’s Gym on Friday night before a home crowd that looked double the size of the official 61 attendance. The ELAC men won by 15, 85-70, and the women lost by 11, 71-82. The men’s game was close in the first half, with ELAC dominating the second half. The women’s game was close through the third quarter, with the Lancers pulling away in the final quarter.
Javion Langston of the ELAC Huskies men’s team scored the first basket with a layup 13 seconds into the game and the Huskies continued to stay ahead of the Lancers until Deen Abdur-Rhamann tied it 10-10 with a 3-point shot at 15:09. The score stayed at 10-10 for the next 2:21 until ELAC’s Shemar Morrow finally scored a free throw to take the Huskies up by 1. PCC went on to take their biggest lead of the game at 18-13, and again at 20-15, before Morrow tied it back up 24-24 with a jump shot at 6:48. The Lancers would not score another point in the first half and the Huskies went into halftime with a strong 41-24 lead.
Huskies basketball wasn’t to be caught in the second half. The closest the Lancers came was a 10 point deficit with Jalen Vazauez making two free throws at 16:05 to bring it to 47-37. Seydi Thiombaine gave the Huskies their biggest lead, 20 points, with a layup at 12:08 to take the score up to 59-39. The final points of the game came at 0:37 with a layup from PCC’s Myles Watkins to finish the game at 85-70.
Brandon Wilson came off the ELAC bench to be the Huskies high scorer with 24 points in 23 minutes of play. Starters Gregory Melvin put up 18 points in 22 minutes and Shemar Morrow scored 14 in 30 minutes. Morrow and Daniel Michelini-Jackson each had 4 assists, with Melvin leading the Huskie boards at 10. Morrow, Melvin, and Michelini-Jackson each had 3 steals, and Morrow led with 3 blocked shots. ELAC finished with 54.7% field goal shooting, 20.0% from the 3-point line, and 76.5% on free throws. PCC finished with 41.1%, 27.3%, and 78.9%.
Despite Guadalupe “Lupe” Vazquez game-leading 32 points, the women’s match was a lot less joy for Huskies fans than the men’s game. Vazquez finished with 11-18 field goals, 5-7 from the 3-point line, 5-6 free throws, 8 rebounds, and 4 assists.
The Huskies never led the game, tying the score for the last time at 11-11 with a layup from Makaia Smith at 2:11 in the first quarter. ELAC closed to within 1 point at 57-58 on a Vazquez 3-point shot at 9:22 in the fourth quarter. Another Vazquez 3-pointer brought it to 62-64 at 6:37 in the fourth. The final six-and-a-half minutes were all PCC with the Lancers keeping their lead at 10 or 11 points for most of it and finishing the game 71-82.
ELAC had slightly better percentages at field goals, 3-point shots, and free throws: 49.1%, 46.2%, and 73.3%, vs PCC’s 47.2%, 43.5%, and 66.7%. But PCC’s greater number of shots, 34-72 field goals vs ELAC’s 27-55, and 10-23 3-pointers vs ELAC’s 6-13 made the difference. The scoring by quarter was ELAC 11, PCC 16 in the first, 21-21 in the second, 22-21 in the third, and 17-24 in the fourth.
After the game, men’s head coach John Mosley (258-66) now in his 12th season with the Huskies said, “It was a game we needed. The last eight years we won the conference and this was the first year we’ve taken some bumps. We’re down two games and we had to get this one because it’s between us, Pasadena, and Mt. Sac to jockey for that top position. Now Mt. Sac is sitting on top and we’ve got them next Wednesday. They have no losses, we have two and Pasadena has two. For the playoffs they may only take two teams from our conference. Right now Mt. Sac’s sitting good and then it’s kind of between us and Pasadena.”
Of their losing performance, sophomore guard/forward Guadalupe “Lupe” Vazquez said, “It was a tough game. I thought we would win this for sure. We should have won. We just made some stupid mistakes. They were getting boards, they were getting calls, they were getting everything. But we lost it ourselves. There’s no way that team is better than us. And we usually do that, we mess up, we play down to other teams’ levels. We’ve just gotta grow from that.”
Vazquez played her freshman year for PCC and is now in her sophomore year at ELAC. On playing her former team she commented, “It was more like ‘I’m just here to kill you. I don’t wanna talk to you. I’m not your friend at all.’ That’s just the way I am. Even if I’m playing my best friend.”
Finishing her 2-year eligibility and looking to 4-year schools, Vazquez said, “I’ll see what God has in store for me. I have a few people looking at me and I’m just seeing which one is the best fit for me.” She declined to name any specific schools just yet.
ELAC’s men’s and women’s basketball teams play another double-header, a Valentine’s Day match-up on Wednesday, February 14 at Mt. San Antonio College. The ELAC men play Mt. Sac (22-2, 6-0) at 5 pm and the women play Mt. Sac (21-2, 4-0) at 7 pm.
