On Sunday night, the number one ranked Ventura Pirates lost their first game this season in the Tom Gilcrest Invitational championship game, to lower ranked Cerritos College.
VC looked like a completely different team losing by a score of 76-62.
Sophomore shooting guard, Carlotta Kloppenburg, felt as though the team has come very far but still has a few things to work on in their weeks ahead.
"The focus of our team and what we needed to do on the court was absent. We're going to work on playing hard every second of the game and becoming more of a unit," said Kloppenburg.
The championship game started off with a 2-2 tie in the first couple of minutes. As Ned Mercedic, the Coach of the Pirates, rotated around his substitutes the Pirates could not manage to find a winning combination. Finally, with all of the starters back in, Ventura took the lead 10-7, still in the first half.
With Cerritos trailing closely behind, freshman shooting guard Gabby King hit a 3, giving the Pirates a lead of 16-14. All of a sudden Cerritos pulled ahead with an overwhelming lead of 26-16, the Pirates begun to look frantic for some answers. As the first half came to a close, the Pirates tried to dig deep for some motivation.
The second half opened up with Cerritos leading 41-21. It wasn't looking too good for the Lady Pirates as their defense seemed to crumble, allowing 10 turnovers at very crucial moments. The Pirates dug themselves into too deep of a hole to come back from and lost their first game all season 76-62.
Destinee LaFountain and Rian Mew earned the all-tournament
award.
The Lady Pirates play in the Los Angeles Valley College Monarch Classic this Friday, Dec. 9 at 5 p.m.
is a member of the 
