UPPER LAKE — Jayce Meri scored 10 of his 15 points in the third quarter and had six of his team-leading seven steals in the same period to energize the Upper Lake Cougars in their 67-49 varsity boys” basketball win over Anderson Valley on Friday night in Upper Lake.
Upper Lake is 1-1 in the four-team, round-robin tournament and will meet Leggett Valley today at 4:30 p.m. as the tournament wraps up. College Prep beat Leggett Valley on Friday to improve to 2-0.
The Cougars (2-4) entered halftime trailing 31-30 but Meri provided the spark Upper Lake coach Forrest Stogner was looking for going into the second half.
“He stepped it up,” Stogner said. “He got us going.”
Three Upper Lake players finished the game with double-doubles. Max Curtis, the Cougars” leading scorer with 20 points, also had 10 rebounds. Kyle Coleman added 10 points and 12 rebounds and Jacob Widener had 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Clear Lake 66, Potter Valley 45
At Potter Valley, the Clear Lake Cardinals took care of the basketball and then took care of the Potter Valley Bearcats to advance to tonight”s championship game against Willits in the Potter Valley Tournament. Tip-off is 8 p.m.
“We did a much better job of handling the ball tonight,” Clear Lake coach Ken Hook said. “We had only 12 turnovers.”
Kory Hook”s 17 points and 14 rebounds powered the Cardinals (4-1) past tournament host Potter Valley. Clear Lake gradually pulled away from the Bearcats and led 16-10 after one quarter, 28-19 at halftime and 44-28 after three quarters.
Armando Martinez scored 16 points, including two 3-pointers, and Brandon White had nine points.
The Cardinals also got a big lift on defense from Nick Falconer, who limited one of Potter Valley”s top players to only eight points.
Jameson Holder and Freddy Olloqui each had four assists for Clear Lake.
Ukiah 54, Lower Lake 52
At Healdsburg, Mike Deakins scored 18 points and had seven rebounds but the Lower Lake Trojans, despite a solid effort, lost a close one to the Ukiah Wildcats in the consolation semifinals of the Redwood Empire Invitational.
“A lot of good things happened tonight,” Lower Lake coach Marty Udy said of the Trojans” play. “We had short spurts of real solid play, we just need to sustain those longer. But we did put ourselves in a position to win and came up just a little bit short.”
Petaluma hit two clutch free throws with 13 seconds remaining to make it a 54-50 game. Lower Lake (1-4) scored in the final seconds to cut it to two.
Kevin Freeman had 11 points for Lower Lake and Jeff Wilder added eight. Point guard Anthony Lucchesi led the team with five assists and four steals.
Lower Lake plays Middletown today at 10:30 a.m. in the seventh-place game.
Petaluma 49, Middletown 42
At Healdsburg, the Middletown Mustangs threw a scare at Petaluma in the consolation semifinals of the Redwood Empire Invitational Basketball Tournament and it was point guard Mason Giovannoni, a last-second replacement for Kelley McKinley, who sparked the Mustangs in their upset bid of Petaluma, a top team in the Sonoma County League.
“He didn”t score a point but he had five steals and he also forced a bunch of turnovers,” Middletown coach Mike Mullin said. “He brings a lot of energy to the floor and it was contagious. It snowballed from there and the other kids got after it. There was plenty of intensity out there tonight.”
Sam Fiddler”s 3-pointer early in the fourth quarter put Middletown ahead by one point and while Petaluma moved back in front a short time later, the Mustangs stayed close the rest of the way.
“This is as close as we could get to a successful outing without getting a win,” Mullin said. “We showed a lot of improvement. I”ve been struggling to find positives (this season) but we had a lot of them in this game.”
Jake Strickler”s 15 points paced Middletown (1-4) and Tyler Hunt added 12.
