Irvine Valley's men's basketball team is playing some of its best ball of the season.
And after a big wins over Riverside at home and at Santa Ana in the last two weeks of the regular season, Irvine Valley earned a3C2A State playoff berth.
The Lasers, glad to be in, earned the 19th seed in the SoCal Regionals and went to No. 14 Moorpark on Wednesday night.
And Irvine Valley went on the road and earned one of the upsets of the first round in the playoffs.
The Lasers played physical, shutdown defense and scored when needed too, especially in the first half in a 66-58 win at Moorpark.
Irvine Valley punched its ticket into the second round and now travels to No. 3 Cerritos on Saturday at 7 p.m. with a trip to the regional final on the line.
"The guys were reay and we really executed all game," said second-year coach Jason Garey, who earned his first playoff win as the head man with the Lasers.
He was a long-time assistant and then associate head coach under legendary head coach Jerry Hernandez and then coached the IVC women's team during the 2022-23 and 2023-24 campaigns before taking over the men's program.
IVC sophomore post player and all-conference selection Matt Mowers won the opening tip and the Lasers then jumped out to a 6-0 lead.
They never looked back.
The game was soon tied, 10-10, but Irvine Valley took over from there.
IVC went on a 10-0 run, capped by a layup by freshman guard Ahmad Alhammouri, and ended up leading, 39-25, at the half.
One of the biggest stats on the night was that Irvine Valley helped hold Moorpark to just 29.5 percent (18 of 61) shooting from the field. And the Raiders made just 6 of 28 attempts from three-point range.
Irvine Valley held a double-digit lead for most of the second half before the Raiders made a late push in the final minutes.
