LOWER LAKE — The Kelseyville Knights not only stood the Clear Lake Cardinals on their heads with a 73-57 victory Thursday during the 15th annual Record-Bee Hoop Classic in Lower Lake, but they turned the varsity standings into a free-for-all in the process.
Two nights after the Cardinals laid waste to the Lower Lake Trojans 81-45, they found themselves on the other end of a beating courtesy of the Knights. As a result, Lower Lake now leads a wide-open varsity race for the tournament title after its 84-70 win over Upper Lake late Thursday night. The Trojans improved to 2-1, Kelseyville, Clear Lake and Middletown all stand at 1-1, and Upper Lake is 1-2. With Lower Lake idle tonight, it is quite possible three teams could take 2-1 records into Saturday”s final round.
“We”re thrilled to be back in it,” Kelseyville coach Scott Conrad said of the race for the varsity championship. “It really doesn”t surprise me that it (varsity race) is so close because everyone has been up and down.”
Conrad should know. Kelseyville opened tournament play Monday with a 71-61 loss to Upper Lake. After a bye on Tuesday and an off day on Wednesday, the Knights weren”t exactly relishing the prospect of playing a physical Clear Lake team that rebounds well and gets up and down the court in a hurry.
And making it even tougher on the Knights, they were without starting forward Steven Grossner, who was out with the flu.
“After Monday”s loss and with no Grossner, I wasn”t sure how we would respond,” Conrad said. “I didn”t have a good feeling going in.”
Kelseyville responded by shooting 46 percent from the field (30-for-65), by outrebounding the Cardinals, and by outplaying them on defense.
Junior guard Peter Wotherspoon sparked the offense with a career-best 27 points, Mike Duman added a double-double of 14 points and 15 rebounds, and Mike Davis and Mike Allen chipped in with eight points apiece, not to mention some physical play inside by Allen.
“I thought Pete was more focused tonight then I”ve ever seen him,” Conrad said. “He was recognizing what defenses they were in and getting us into our stuff.”
Duman and Allen helped the Knights hold their own on the boards.
“Mike Duman seemed like he got every rebound,” Conrad said.
Kelseyville”s defense all but shut down the Cardinals” two leading scoring threats, Ryan Richardson and Corey Dillon. Richardson, coming off a 30-point game against Lower Lake, was held to just 13 points and Dillon ended up nine, of which only two came after the first quarter. Aaron Marshall also had 13 points for the Cardinals.
“We did a good job on Richardson and Dillon,” Conrad said. “They both can hurt you and we did a good job keeping track of where they were.”
Even Wyatt Ferrell, a freshman, had his moments for Kelseyville in his varsity debut, scoring four points.
“There”s no easing into it in a game like this and Ferrell held his own out there,” Conrad said.
In fact, it was a Ferrell basket midway through the third quarter that sparked a run by the Knights after Clear Lake had closed to 36-33. Kelseyville pushed its lead to 11 by quarter”s end and then put the game away with a flurry of points early in the fourth quarter, pushing its lead to 62-43.
Wotherspoon scored 10 points in the fourth quarter, going 3-for-4 from the field with a 3-pointer and 3-for-4 from the line.
Lower Lake 84, Upper Lake 70
Help!
That”s the buzz word for Lower Lake”s Trojans who on Thursday night played their way back into title contention in the 15th annual Record-Bee Hoop Classic with a resounding victory over Upper Lake.
The win, the second in three games for Lower Lake, gave the Trojans a leg up, however tenuously, in the tournament as the first of the five county teams to improve their record to 2-1.
That one loss, however, looms big because it came against Classic favorite Clear Lake. Clear Lake”s loss to Kelseyville on Thursday night — two nights after demolishing the Trojans — at least gave the host team and defending champions a mathematical shot at the title.
The catch is one of the two teams the Clear Lake has yet to play in the Classic — Upper Lake and Middletown — would have to upset the Cardinals for Lower Lake to come out on top. Improbable, perhaps, but not impossible in a tournament in which the winner will have at least one loss for the first time in eight years.
The Trojans” win on Thursday night did not come as easily as the final score indicates. Plucky Upper Lake overcame a 46-35 halftime deficit to pull within two points three times in the second half — the last time at 62-60 with 5:16 remaining in the game.
At that point, however, the Trojans went on a 10-0 run that eventually became a 14-2 run to put the verdict out of reach.
“I thought earlier in the game that we were about ready to put ”em away,” said Trojan coach Marty Udy. “Then three 3-pointers in a row and they”re right back in it.”
All three of the treys were by Upper Lake senior forward Kyle
Coleman, the game”s high scorer with 26, in the third quarter and trimmed Lower Lake”s once-substantial lead to 52-48.
But superior shooting with a degree of accuracy the Trojans had not shown earlier in the tournament made them a force that was not to be denied. Three Trojans ? David Clark, Paul Bailey, Jeremy Parks — shouldered the load with 25, 22 and 19 points.
“The nice thing was we had an inside-outside combination going on.
“We attacked the rim more tonight,” said Udy.
“We”re not playing very good defense to have a team score 84 points on us,” shrugged Upper Lake coach Forrest Stogner. “We played good, they played better.”
Shaking off their first two games of lackluster shooting, the Trojans converted 14 of 21 field goals in the first half and finished in a blaze, sinking their last five shots from the floor.
“I was really proud of the guys tonight,” said Udy. “They played hard and had a good attitude and those are the things I”m looking for.”
That and another loss for Clear Lake.
