In what was a tight game all night long, the Irvine Valley men's basketball team pulled away in the fiinal minutes and took down Orange Coast, 76-67, on Wednesday night at home in a second game of the Orange Empire Conference Tournament.
IVC fell to Santa Ana in an opening game last week to fall into the consolation bracket.
Now the Lasers have a chance to capture the consolation title of the even and strengthen their postseason chances.
Irvine Valley improved its record to 16-13 overall and 8-8 in the conference.
Orange Coast went to 5-24 overall and 1-15 in the OEC.
IVC now plays district rival Saddleback on Friday in both squads final game of the event.
Against Orange Coast, the game was tied, 33-33, at the half.
But Irvine Valley out-scored the Pirates, 43-34, in the final 20 minutes to earn the victory.
There were nine ties and 10 lead changes in the game. Orange Coast led by as many as three points and Irvine Valley's largest lead of nine was the final score.
The Lasers shot an impressive 56.3 percent (27 of 48) from the field for the game, including making 8 of 17 three-point attempts.
Irvine Valley hurt itself at times with turnovers where it had 24 to Orange Coast's 15.
Leading the way for the Lasers was freshman post player Matt Mowers with 20 points and 11 rebounds. He went 9 of 10 from the floor.
Freshman point guard Allen Moser added 13 points, four rebounds and four assist and sophomore guard Ammon Allan ended with 12 points, six rebounds and three assists
IVC freshmanm wing Garrett Trayer and sophomore forward Josiah Reed each contributed nine points for the Lasers and freshman guard Nate Tuttle finished with eight points, including make a couple of clutch three-pointers and chipped in six rebounds.
OCC was led by Ronnie Davis with 20 points and seven assists and Chris Obiajulu with 19 points, five rebounds and four steals.
