Riverside Community College Regains Lead Share, Fourth in Poll

[ February 7, 2005 Poll ]

Riverside Community college re-enters the CCCWBCA fab five this week as they switch with Cypress College and land at #4. Pasadena City College is the only undefeated U.S. 2-year women's basketball college program west of the Rocky Mountains and the unaminous choice for the top ranking. Antelope Valley College is a point short of a unanimous nod for second.
Santa Rosa Junior College is the highest ranked team of the North Region at #3. San Jose City College holds strong with another week in fifth.

South Coast Conference used Wednesday to finish their interdivisional schedule. The only game left to play was #7 Mt. San Antonio College at unranked Cerritos College. Cerritos upset the 7th-ranked Mounties, 56-53. Mt. San Antonio recovered on Friday to defeat East Los Angeles College by 22 points in a North Division match, but dropped to #8. Division leader Pasadena downed Los Angeles City College to push their season record to 23-0. Cerritos' home court could not give them a second upset for the week as El Camino College won 62-53 to split their season series and tie the two squads for the South Division lead at 4-1.

Antelope Valley College all but clinched Foothill Conference on Wednesday with a hard-fought 73-71 triumph over #13 Chaffey College in the South Region Game of the Week. Chaffey defeated College of the Desert 75-57 on the weekend to get them close to clinching second place. Chaffey moved up to #12 this week. Upsets will be necessary to get Desert back out of third place.

Santa Rosa scored twice in the 80's while holding their opponents to the 50's to continue their 2-game lead in Bay Valley Conference Bay Division. Solano Community College is alone in second after overcoming #17 Contra Costa College in overtime, 87-80. Contra Costa dipped to #19. In Valley Division, the twin leaders both had a game against American River College and a bye. Sierra College hosted on Tuesday and won 67-55 to take a temporary half-game lead. San Joaquin Delta College traveled on Friday and won by three more points, 74-59.

The Orange Empire Conference race got closer last week. Cypress College and Riverside both won tight contests on Wednesday to set up a showdown Friday night. Riverside got the best of Cypress for an uptempo, 99-94 win to tie the two colleges for first place at 7-2. Fullerton College is a game behind after falling to Riverside on Wednesday night, 72-66. With Fullerton having no games left against the leaders, they will need some help to successfully defend their conference championship.

Mission College gained momentum as their players return to health and became tied for first place Wednesday night. They handed Foothill College their first loss in Coast Conference North Division in the North Region Game of the Week. It put the two teams at 3-1 along with City College of San Francisco at the halfway point. They have one win and one loss against each other. Foothill and Mission collected wins on Friday to pull a half-game ahead of idle CCSF on Friday. Ohlone College kept pace with San Jose City College as each earned two wins on the week in South Division. San Jose leads the Renegades by a game. Ohlone has a shot at San Jose next week to try to wrangle a co-championship.

Butte College hosted Shasta College and gave Shasta its first loss of Golden Valley Conference play. The 70-58 victory opened the door for #10 Lassen College to get a share of the crown if they can win all five games in the second half of conference. Currently, they rest a game behind Butte and Shasta.

Western State Conference had a comparitively uneventful week in comparision to the other conferences. In twelve games, all of the favorites won and standings had little shuffling. Citrus College did clinch their first-ever share of a women's basketball conference title on Saturday with a 67-52 win at Los Angeles Valley College. Ventura College is favored to clinch their share of North Division as they are up by two games with three remaining.

Porterville College struggled in the early days of Central Valley Conference but the pre-conference favorites climbed into the lead last week. Standings going into the week were Fresno and Merced colleges at 5-2 and Porterville at 4-2. Wednesday evening, College of the Sequoias stayed alive by taking Fresno City College 65-51, Merced beat Reedley College 78-65 and Porterville ran past Taft. Merced became the leader at 6-2 with Porterville at 5-2 and Fresno in third at 5-3. The weekend found Porterville ending Sequoias' title hopes 74-70, giving them a 6-2 conference lead. Fresno pushed past Merced at home, 75-64, to tie the two teams for second at 6-3.

Pacific Coast Conference took their traditional mid-conference break on Wednesday. Grossmont College fended off Southwestern College 68-62. Imperial Valley College remained a game ahead of Grossmont after a near-upset at Palomar College, 58-55.

Grossmont can give Imperial Valley their first loss in Pacific Coast Conference and possibly take the automatic playoff berth via conference tiebreak rules if they remain tied. The South Region Game of the Week is slated for Wednesday, February 9 at 5:00 pm. At 5:30, Lassen College rests their title dreams on a home win over Butte for the North Region counterpart.

Greg Murphy gregm@altair.csustan.edu