Irvine Valley's women's basketball team finished a perfect Orange Empire Conference schedule with a 64-49 win over Fullerton at home on Friday night.
The Lasers, ranked No. 4 in the state, started the evening by honoring sophomore players Anai Washington, Zoe Stachowski, Kelli Murakami-Hanashiro and Emma Vasquez, and then battled back from a half-time deficit for another victory.
The triumph – along with two forfeit victories over Orange Coast – pushed IVC's record to 26-2 overall and 14-0 in conference.
The Lasers will now wait for postseason seeding and brackets, which will be released on Monday afternoon.
Irvine Valley trailed a gritty Fullerton team, 33-27, at the half.
But the Lasers got after it in the third quarter, especially on the defensive end.
IVC held Fullerton (17-11, 9-5) to just five points in the third quarter to take control.
Irvine Valley out-scored the Hornets, 19-5, in the period.
Washington and Stachowski combined for 14 of those 19 points and the duo also came up with 13 rebounds.
Irvine Valley held a 46-38 lead going into the fourth quarter and never looked back.
Freshman guard Jessica Suruor made a jumper early in the fourth quarter to push IVC's lead to double digits at 48-38 and Fullerton never got closer than seven points the rest of the way.
Three free throws by Stachowski in the final minute pushed Irvine Valley's advantage to 15 points.
Irvine Valley shot just 28.6 percent (20 of 70) from the field in the game, but helped hold Fullerton to only 26.7 percent (16 of 60).
Fullerton had 21 turnovers in the contest and IVC took advantage, turning those miscues into 18 points.
Washington and Stachowski had big nights. Washington finished with 20 points and 16 rebounds and Stachowski had 17 points and 18 rebounds for the Lasers. Murakami-Hanashiro came off the bench with 10 points and freshman guard Samantha Uehara had six points and seven rebounds for IVC.
Fullerton got 10 points each from Moriah Serrano and Celise Moreno. And Angela Zendejas contributed nine points and seven rebounds for the Hornets.
