The Ventura College women’s basketball team has never heard of the term “rebuilding.” Most schools would consider losing four of your five starters from an undefeated team a significant loss. For the Pirates, however, the term, often used by many colleges who lose great players, never comes to mind for them.

The Pirates have only lost one game this year, and continued to show their dominance in a 64-39 blowout victory over Santa Barbara City College Saturday evening at the Ventura Athletic Center.

After a slow start, the Pirates (21-1, 4-0 WSC) turned on the heat and went into the break with a 29-20 advantage. The team shot 47 percent in the first 20 minutes while holding the Vaqueros (10-10, 2-1) to 33 percent shooting in the first half. Vaqueros forward Brittany Stephenson led all scorers with 11, while Lacey Escamilla led the Pirates with nine points.

Entering the second half, the Pirates went on an offensive storm, hitting 12 of its first 15 shots to take the game away with a 25-point advantage with 7:50 left to play.

Escamilla highlighted the run with consecutive 3-pointers to get the crowd on its feet. Escamilla opened things up with her two threes and Gabrielle Conn drilled a 10-footer from the baseline to cap a decisive run that gave the Pirates a 45-28 edge with just under 11 minutes to play.

The Vaqueros fired back with six quick points to bend the lead down to 12 with a little over 11 minutes remaining, but Escamilla netted three more 3-pointers to cap off a 14-4 run that gave the Pirates a 58-33 edge at the 5:34 mark. The Vaqueros never got any closer than 19 down the stretch as the Pirates cruised to victory.

Pirates head coach Ned Mircetic said that the team had been specifically preparing to face the Vaqueros in the last couple weeks.

“They’re a good team and we’ve been practicing to play them for quite some time,” he said. “We had been running some drills and dribbling exercises to face them.”