Youth will be served for the City College women’s basketball team this season, and on Nov. 10, they survived a trial by fire in the final minutes.

The Vaqueros (3-2) led by as much as 16 but held off a late rally from LA Harbor College (1-3) to earn a 66-64 win at the Sports Pavilion.

“They want it so bad, and they forget to be efficient, but that’s a great problem to have,” head coach Sandrine Krul said.

Freshman guard Katrina Regalado led City College with 20 points while equaling a game-high six assists, and freshman guard/forward Trinity Scott scored 13 while leading the Vaqueros with a game-high 12 rebounds.  Freshman guard Jada Turner led all scorers in the game with 29 for LA Harbor College.

City College utilized an “inside-and-out offense” which allowed both Scott as well as freshman forward Asia Kirven to thrive. Scott kicked out from the post to make a pair of triples that proved critical for the Vaqueros.

Kirven finished with 11 points and nine rebounds, battling in the post for position during her time in the game.

“We need to work on slowing down our pace and running our plays,” Regalado said. “When we slow things down and run our plays is when we score.” 

City College took advantage of a more than four-minute stretch in the third quarter where they held Harbor College without a bucket and didn’t allow the Vaquero defense to hold for over a quarter.

As they built a lead as much as 16 — twice  — City College tasked their bench withholding the advantage.

Freshman forward Berlin Faiaipau came off the bench to add 5 points, leading the bench brigade and knocking down a critical three-point jumper in transition in the later stages of the game.

The Vaqueros were never able to get comfortable with a lead, as they built their most significant edge during the third quarter and saw LA Harbor come perilously close in the fourth.

City College will be on the road for the remainder of 2021 and will not play a home game until conference play begins against Ventura College at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. 

“Some of these kids have not played for 22 months, so it’ll come because we want to get really good by January,” Krul said.

“We’re just going up and up, and up, but we’ll take that W today.”