Citrus Men's Basketball Headed to State Championship Round After Knocking Off Irvine Valley College 71-64

men’s basketball team is headed back to the state championship tournament, advancing after defeating Irvine Valley College 71-64 in a CCCAA Regional Final playoff game Saturday night at the Owl’s Nest.

The No. 4 seeded Owls, who won the CCCAA in 2008 and advanced to the semifinals last season, hosted No. 8 seeded Irvine Valley after a 72-62 semi-final home victory over the Chaffey Panthers on Wednesday.

“I’m really excited,” said Citrus Coach Chris Victor following Saturday’s win. “It s exciting to be able to go back with these guys and this program, it means a lot.

"I was here five years ago and to come out and to go back to the Final Four, it’s huge,” Victor said. He said the team never doubted they would be making another deep post-season run that would land the team in the state championship round.

 “It was one of our goals, we believed it, we all believed it, we all believed it the whole season,” said Victor.

Both teams traded turnovers early in the half but the Lasers went on an early run to take a 15-9 lead, prompting the Owls (26-5) to take a timeout at the 12:44 mark.

The Owls battled back behind 46 percent shooting in the first half, led by Davon Shelton who contributed with 13 points and two blocked shots, the most emphatic of which cut the Irvine Valley lead to four points at 21-16 with 9:55 to go in the half.

The Owls took advantage of a 63 percent to 20 free throw advantage over the visiting Lasers (23-8) and tied the score at 27-27.

The Lasers retorted with a 5-0 run with Travis Fulton leading the offensive attack and leading all Irvine Valley scorers with 13 points of his own. However, the Owls took the lead back converting several foul shot opportunities and led 34-32 at the break.

Citrus scored four quick points to open the second half of play. Irvine Valley closed to within three points at 41-38 but the Owls were able to take advantage of multiple turnovers and later went on a 9-0 run, building a 10-point lead before the visitors were able to score again.

Three Citrus players finished in double figures and Davon Shelton led all scorers in the game with 21 points and four blocks as Citrus led 58-48 with a bit over five minutes to play in the contest. The Owls held on for the win and advance to next week's CCCAA championships, scheduled for March 11-13 at Ventura College.

“It feels great, this is what we worked for, ever since last Spring, we’ve been talking about it every week, it feels great, we’ve got to make the best of it,” said a jubilant Shelton after finishing the game 8 for 11 from the field and helping the Owls to a 46-43 percent field goal advantage over the Lasers.

“This is what we’ve been preparing for all season and we’ve done a great job preparing so we’re very excited about the opportunity,” said Victor.