By Miguel Dominguez
The women’s basketball team beat Ventura College on the last shot of the game on Thursday.
Delilah Kimble-Gray scored the game-winner that advanced the Huskies to the next round of the playoffs.
Multiple players got double digits in points.
Both Kimble-Gray and Naomi Winston-Ellis finished off the game with 14 points each.
Destyni Heard scored 13 points and Isabel Arango scored 12 points for the Huskies.
Kimble-Gray and Winston-Ellis also got double digits on rebounds. Kimble-Gray finished with 11 rebounds and Winston-Ellis finished with 10.
There were a total of 10 lead changes in the game. Kimble-Gray scored the first points of the game for the Huskies and scored the game winner.
The Huskies looked comfortable early in the quarter and led the first half of the quarter. The defensive pressure for the Huskies made it difficult for Ventura.
Contreras was aggressive in the quarter, forcing turnovers on Ventura.
Ventura eventually caught up to the Huskies and took the lead in the first quarter 12-11.
Only two players scored for the Huskies. Kimble-Gray scored seven points and had seven rebounds. Of the seven, six were defensive rebounds.
The second scorer was Destyni Heard with four points and one rebound.
Sydney Patterson scored the first points and gave the Huskies the lead in the second quarter 13-12. It was a close quarter for both teams.
There were a total of four lead changes in the quarter.
Bad news came for the Huskies with four minutes to go, when Contreras would come out of the game with an ankle injury after she was crossed up.
Contreras did not play the rest of the game.
Another scare for the Huskies came in the final seconds of the quarter when Kimble-Gray took a hard fall after attempting a layup. She remained in the game for the Huskies. Naomi Winston-Ellis had the most points in the quarter for the Huskies with eight points. Of the eight points, Heard made two three pointers.
Isabel Arango led the team with four rebounds. She also scored four points in the quarter.
Sydney Patterson came off the bench and scored four points for the Huskies. The Huskies trailed the half 29-28.
The Huskies took the lead in the third quarter with Arango’s jump-shot, making it 34-33. The Huskies largest lead in the quarter was 39-34.
That was the biggest lead in the game since the first quarter when they led 9-4. The Huskies ended the quarter leading 46-43.
Arango led the team with eight points. She went perfect going three-for-three from the field. She also made all her free throws going two for two.
Heard was a big factor on offense and defense. She scored seven points and had two steals in the game.
Ellis led the team in rebounds with seven rebounds in the quarter.
There were a total of six lead changes in the final quarter of the game.
Cerritos player Alyssandra Lacanilao made a three pointer to give Cerritos the lead 48-46. But Ellis would answer right back with a three of her own to take back the lead 49-46 with 8:47 to go.
Later in the quarter, the Huskies led 53-50 and lost the lead when Cerritos scored seven points in a row, making it 57-53 with two minutes to go.
Heard got the Huskies closer after making two free throws making it 57-55. Kimble-Gray converted a layup to tie the game with 1:26 to go.
With three seconds left, the game was tied and Cerritos turned over the ball on an error by Sofia Torres-Reyes.
The Huskies got the ball with 2.5 seconds left and took two timeouts as they looked for a play to inbound the ball. The Huskies inbounded the ball to Kimble-Gray. She dribbled the ball and shot a fade-away-jumper over two defenders and scored at the buzzer for the win.
After the shot was made, Kimble-Gray was mobbed by her teammates. The Huskies will advance to the next round of the playoffs where they will play in the State Quarterfinals at West Hills-Lemoore on Friday.