Women's Basketball Falls in State Sweet 16

The Pirates' women's basketball team fell in the 3C2A Southern California Regional Final Saturday 67-50 at Moorpark. Alexa Coubal had another excellent outing with a 17-point, 14-rebound double-double and Elena Ferrara recorded a season-best 18 points including a 4-5 night from beyond the 3-point line. Mykah Johnson added six points off the bench and Tiernan Phillips pulled down seven boards in the game.

The VC offense struggled in the early going with a pair of free throws and a bucket by Alexa Coubal in the first five minutes of the game. Defensively, the Pirates were up to the task and held a 4-3 advantage midway through the first quarter. At that point the Raiders went on a 15-0 run, however, and Ventura trailed 18-4 with 7:46 left in the second period when Coubal broke the Pirate skid. Ferrara and Phillips sandwiched a trey and a deuce around an MC 3-pointer, and Johnson followed with a runner at the 4:29 mark to cut the deficit back to nine points. Sam McKenzie hit from three and Johnson scored again to make it 24-18 for the Raiders with 1:35 on the clock, but Moorpark scored the final four points of the half to put VC behind 28-18 at intermission.

The teams traded scored early in the second half and Alexis Howery cashed in Coubal's dime for three on an inside out pass to pull Ventura back to within 32-23 with 8:35 still remaining in the third period. That was as close as the Pirates could come, unfortunately, as a 10-2 Moorpark run gave the Raiders full control of the game. VC trailed 47-26 at the end of the quarter.

Early in the fourth, Ventura's deficit expanded as they continued to have trouble finding the bottom of the net. Ferrara finally got things going in the final period scoring 15 of her 18 points and Coubal netted seven in the last 10 minutes of the season to bring the Pirates back to the final 67-50 margin.

Coubal's double-double was her 16th of the season in 31 games for the Pirates. She was 6-12 from the floor and 5-5 at the free throw line in her season finale. Coubal finished the season setting a new school record with 177 made free throws, breaking a record set by Linda Roberson in 1987. She also shot 82.7 percent from the foul line on the year, just off the program record of 83.0 percent set by Kelly Murray in 2001. Her 214 free throw attempts was also fourth in a single-season all-time at VC. 

With the loss, the Pirates end the 2023-24 season with a record of 20-11. It was the 33rd 20-win season for Ventura in the past 34 seasons.