MIDDLETOWN — Jim Salmina”s first season as head coach of the Lower Lake Trojans keeps getting better and better.
On Thursday night, the Trojans held off the Kelseyville Knights 40-38 in the opening round of the North Central League I North varsity girls” basketball tournament at Middletown High School. The fourth meeting this season between Salmina”s new team and his former team produced the Trojans” second win — they won the last two after dropping the first two to the Knights (16-11).
Lower Lake plays NCL I North champion Willits tonight at 6:30 p.m. in the finals. While the Wolverines are already headed to next week”s North Coast Section Division IV playoffs as a league champion, the Trojans (18-9) are very much in the running for an at-large berth as are the Knights. Beating the Wolverines would pretty much cap a strong rookie season for Salmina at his alma mater.
“These kids are playing their hearts out,” Salmina said. “We”re playing to the level where we need to be playing.”
Salmina should get a nice round of applause from the Willits fans regardless of tonight”s outcome. Lower Lake beat Willits in overtime last week in Lower Lake only to return the win after Salmina reviewed the game film and found a scoring error that gave the Wolverines a 44-42 regulation victory. Had he said nothing, Lower Lake would have kept the win.
“A lot of Willits people were coming up to me (Thursday) saying it was a class thing to do,” Salmina said. “We get another shot at them now.”
If the Trojans can get past the Wolverines tonight for their 19th win of the season, they would have a shot at a 20th victory should they reach the playoffs as an at-large team. The last time a Lower Lake girls team accomplished that feat was in the 1996-97 season (21-8).
In Thursday”s go-around with the Knights, the two teams went back and forth in the fourth quarter until Veronica Wilder put the Trojans ahead to stay by sinking both ends of a one-and-one with 3.4 seconds remaining to make it 40-38.
Kelseyville had a chance to tie it with .4 seconds left but Monique Santana missed the front end of a one-and-one.
“I don”t know how many lead changes there were down the stretch, probably seven or eight,” Salmina said. “Both teams played hard, both teams wanted the game.”
Both teams also had key players in foul trouble by game”s end and Kelseyville lost its leading scorer on the season, Skyler Olsen, with two minutes remaining when she picked up her fifth foul. She left for the bench with 12 points.
“It was back and forth the whole fourth quarter,” Kelseyville coach Caitlin Andrus said.
The game almost turned on a 3-point attempt by Kelseyville”s Liz Berry late in the fourth quarter that rattled in and out. Berry finished with 10 points.
Both coaches were impressed with the play of their defenses.
“We did well defensively,” Andrus said. “They didn”t get a lot of second shots.”
Added Salmina, “Our defense was outstanding.”
April White”s 11 points paced the Trojans and Wilder finished with 10. Amber Daniels added six points, 10 rebounds and three steals.
