Harbor Women Advance; Seahawk Men Fall to Rancho : Men: After falling behind lead, Rancho Santiago charges back for 103-84 victory.

In the Holiday Classic tournament, Harbor College suffered what turned out to be its worst defeat of the year, a 109-82 loss to Rancho Santiago College.

So the 16th-seeded Seahawks entered Saturday’s first-round state regional playoff game against Rancho as a great opportunity to avenge the loss.

No such Luck. Rancho, seeded 17th, led through most of the game and won, 103-84, at Harbor.

These weren’t the same teams that met in December. Harbor all-conference forward Bassirou Niang, who missed the first game because of an injury, was a force in Saturday’s game.

Rancho was missing sophomore point guard Beau Hossler on Saturday. Hossler, the school’s all-time assist leader, quit the team before the last game of the regular season because of personality differences with Coach Dana Pagett.

“We’ve only played two games without him and I think the guys have done really well,” Pagett said. “I think we’re doing a good job.”

Harbor (17-15) came out firing, taking a 14-4 lead. But Rancho (20-12) responded by scoring 13 unanswered points for a 17-14 lead. The Seahawks never led after that.

Harbor’s Niang scored 11 points in the stretch and finished with 22.

Rancho held a 48-41 halftime lead and Harbor could not cut into the deficit in the second half.

“We started off like gang-busters,” Harbor Coach Carl Strong said. “But then we had a real flat period.”

At times the Seahawks looked confused.

“Guys were not at the right spots,” Strong said. “Sometimes I didn’t know what we were in. It was a very confusing game. A couple of guys we needed to step up were not ready. We made some foolish passes and missed easy layins.”

With 9:50 left to play, Rancho took a 21-point lead when guard J.J. Ballesteros made a 15-foot jump shot.

Harbor applied a full-court press that proved ineffective.

“We really played well tonight,” Pagett said. “We really did a good job on the boards in not allowing them second shots. We also shot the ball real well.”

Four Rancho players scored in double figures. Forward Ruben Oronoz had a game-high 26 points, Ballesteros had 20, forward Jason Janeski had 18 and point guard Mike Bradach added 15.

Forward Jerry Allen led Harbor with 24 points before fouling out with 7:35 left to play.