LOWER LAKE — While the Lower Lake Trojans are a long way from where they want to be, they are most definitely headed in the right direction.
So says Lower Lake High School varsity girls” basketball coach Jim Salmina after a 37-29 victory over the Upper Lake Cougars on Wednesday night at the Lake County Tournament in Lower Lake. The Trojans improved to 2-0 in the round-robin standings featuring all five of the county”s schools behind 14 points from Jonesha Beasley and seven from Veronica Wilder.
“I”m happy with this team, it”s a nice team,” said Salmina, who is in his first season for the Trojans after a long and successful tenure as Kelseyville”s head coach. “We”re not far off from where we can be a good basketball team.”
The Trojans held off a determined Upper Lake squad coached by Don Meri.
“They”re tough,” Salmina said of the Cougars. “Don does a great job with those kids. I”ve coached against him for 25 years in football and basketball and he”s a good coach. His kids played their tails off. They played every second.”
Lower Lake led 16-12 at halftime and 30-22 after three quarters.
“We missed too many 5-footers,” Salmina said. “But we played good enough defense to get the job done.”
And good enough to find the win column, something the Trojans have struggled with in recent seasons.
“April White played real good defense but she”s still finding her offense,” Salmina said of the sophomore, who played on the varsity last season.
Ashley Arroyo”s seven points paced the Cougars and Katherine Edmonds and Sierra Coleman added six apiece.
Lower Lake and Kelseyville, both 2-0 in the tournament standings, square off tonight at 7:30 p.m. in the likely championship game.
In the early varsity game Wednesday, Clear Lake logged its first tournament win and first victory of the season by beating the Middletown Mustangs 50-38.
Katie Reynolds scored 15 points and had one of the Cardinals” four 3-point field goals. Mari Jordan added 13 points and Rylie Gabehart had nine. Clear Lake is 1-2 in the tourney standings.
Middletown dropped to 0-2 despite 10 points from Jenny McGee and nine from Jodie Mitchell.
Clear Lake led 22-15 at halftime.
Tournament play (see schedule, this page) continues today and wraps up Saturday at Lower Lake High School.
