LOWER LAKE — Opening up the season against a team that reached the North Coast Section Division IV semifinals last season and is still a force to be reckoned with this season, the Lower Lake Trojans fell 66-55 to the Arcata Huskies on Wednesday in the varsity boys” basketball opener for both schools at Lower Lake.
This season”s Arcata squad also received a huge infusion of talent from last season”s junior varsity team, which went 25-0.
“Nine of those players are now on the varsity,” Lower Lake coach Marty Udy said. “They”re a good team.”
“I”ve seen a lot of first games,” said Udy, now in his 13th season at the school, “and a lot of them didn”t go nearly as well as this one. “Everything I saw (that we did wrong) is correctable. I like the players I have and if this group work together, we”ll be fine.”
Lower Lake (0-1) bolted out to a 13-2 lead and it easily could have been 17-2 had the Trojans converted a pair of easy layups.
“Before you knew it, they hit some shots and started chipping away,” Udy said.
Down 15-7 after one quarter, the Huskies moved in front 25-24 until Lower Lake scored on a layup in the final seconds of the first half to go up 26-25 at the intermission.
The Huskies began to pull away in the third quarter and led 47-39 heading into the final period.
“In the second half we didn”t do a good job rebounding,” Udy said. “They killed us on the boards, especially the defensive boards. We gave up too many second shots and you just can”t do that.”
Eric White”s 12 points paced the Trojans and Jeff Wilder (11) and Mike Deakins (10) also finished in double digits. Matt Parks added eight points.
Lower Lake hosts Potter Valley on Tuesday but the game a North Coast Section Foundation game will not count toward either team”s record. The Trojans return to action Dec. 1 against Berean Christian in the Berean Chr-istian Tournament.
