LAKE COUNTY — Lake County”s two basketball survivors from the regular season — the Middletown girls and Clear Lake boys — return to action Wednesday night as the North Coast Section Division IV playoffs get under way with first-round games.
Middletown, the North Central League I North champion, hosts Bay Shore Athletic League team Piedmont at 7:30 p.m. The Mustangs (18-8) earned the 12th seed in the 12-team field but are playing at home because they are league champions and the fifth-seeded Highlanders (19-9) are not. Piedmont finished fifth in the powerful BSAL, which has two other teams in the field — No. 1 seed St. Mary”s (24-4) and No. 7 St. Patrick/St. Vincent (15-12).
The Highlanders list three 6-footers on their roster and another 5-11 player.
The Middletown-Piedmont winner advances to the quarterfinals on Saturday against No. 4 McKinleyville (20-5), the Humboldt-Del Norte Big 5 champion.
Other first-round games Wednesday have Justin-Siena at Ursuline; St. Vincent/St. Patrick at No. 10 St. Helena (23-2), the NCL I South champion; and Healdsburg at Fortuna.
The top four seeds all have first-round byes. They are St. Mary”s, Marin Catholic (22-5), Moreau Catholic (21-5) and McKinleyville.
There are only 11 teams on the boys” half of the bracket because not enough Division IV teams met the playoff criteria of having either a winning record or a winning record against Division IV opponents.
Clear Lake (15-12), the third-place team out of the NCL I South, earned the 10th seed and will head north to play No. 7 Fortuna (13-12), the fourth-place team in the HDNL Big 5. Tip-off is 6:30 p.m.
The Clear Lake-Fortuna winner moves on to the quarterfinal round on Saturday and will play No. 2 seed St. Mary”s (24-4), the BSAL runner-up, at 6:30 p.m.
Other first-round boys” games have Healdsburg at Fort Bragg, the NCL I North champion, and Willits at McKinleyville. No. 5 seed St. Patrick/St. Vincent has a bye.
The top four seeds in Division IV are BSAL champion Salesian (24-4), St. Mary”s, Cardinal Newman (27-1) and Arcata (21-6).
Clear Lake junior Ryan Richardson enters the Fortuna game with 599 points and a team-leading scoring average of 23 points per game. He stands to become only the sixth player in Lake County history to score 600 points in a season. With seven points against Fortuna, he”ll become the county”s all-time single-season scoring leader for juniors.
Tyler Hunt scored 618 points last season for Middletown to become Lake County”s all-time single-season boys” scoring leader. The all-time leader is Upper Lake”s Laura Wilder with 648 points in 1993-94, when the Cougars reached the Northern California Division V semifinals.
