The journey started with a clear destination rising into the sunset.

Yet the road would be obscured by low-lying clouds.

The path to Ventura College women's basketball team's 12th Great Eight, the first in five years, was not how it was plotted by the coaching staff.

"A lot of times you create your own obstacles, you create your own problem with the decisions you make," said coach Ned Mircetic. "Most of what's happened this year is different.

"It so extraordinary that you can't use normal terms like obstacles."

In the span of two months, two players lost their fathers in motor vehicle accidents. The first, the team's top returning All-American, played just four games before missing the rest of the season with a back injury.

The season was a week old and the blueprint from which the team was designed — returning All-American guard Jessi Selleh on one side and potential All-American guard Indira Kaljo on the other, spacing the floor for their teammates — was compromised.

"Everything was based on that," said Mircetic. "Yet none of it really happened. The identity of that team, that vision, never occurred."

Instead, the group would wonder how much bad news it could take. Another player briefly left the team last month during conference play to attend her grandfather's funeral in New York.

Assistant coach Robin Hester briefly left the team in the first month of the season to spend a week with his best friend, whose wife had succumbed to cancer. Cherie Tsui's death was the genesis of the team's "Think Pink" event, which raised money for a local breast cancer foundation.

At least two key members of the team are holding off surgeries until the season ends this weekend.

Starting point guard Michelle Santizo, who pops penicillin after practice, will have her swollen tonsils removed next Wednesday. Mircetic was notified Tuesday he needs eye surgery immediately after the season, to correct a chronic infiltration that had him doing an interview Monday with his eyes shut.

The injuries, while secondary, have been debilitating.

"If it wasn't one thing, then it was another," said sophomore Jenelle Conklin. "There was always something wrong with someone."

Freshman Christine McPherson will probably be unavailable this weekend because of back injury. Freshman Donielle Griggs missed a month with a pulled muscle. Freshman Julie Heurung spends half of each practice on a stationary bike, rather than on the floor, to rest her sore knees.

And then there is Conklin, who missed a game against Hancock, the school near her Santa Maria home, after getting into a car accident.

And that came after the lefty forward started her daily ritual of icing down nearly every joint in her body.

"My teammates say I should just jump in an ice bath," said Conklin.

After everything that has happened, it is easy to wonder is whether they have anything left to chase success this weekend.

But the Pirates say this has been a season that has forged a team, not dissolved one.

"It makes me want it more," said Santizo. "It makes me want to go harder every day."

"We were growing," said Kaljo. "Through those little bumps in the road, that's where you get stronger. It's a learning journey."

Through it all, they have produced a 3.35 team GPA and a 29-5 record, including three losses to two-time defending state champion and three-peat favorite Mount San Antonio (34-1).

If Pirates beat 34-2 Fresno on Thursday, they will win 30 games in a season for the ninth time in Mircetic's 18 seasons.

"It will be a test of preparation, a test of wills, a test of health, especially for us," said Mircetic. "But there will be no regrets.

"This is a season that you can look on with pride. The accomplishments of this team are rather incredible."