LAKEPORT — The Clear Lake Cardinals forced Middletown to dance to its music on Thursday night and, in the end, the Mustangs were forced to pay the piper ? a 64-57 loss.
The Hoop Classic”s defending champions and winners of three of the last five Classics, Middletown was totally out-of-step with the beat, committing a dozen turnovers in the first half to Clear Lake”s five — including only one in the second quarter when the Cards took control of the game by mounting a 39-27 lead.
“They got us out of what we do,” said the Mustangs” first-year varsity coach G.J. Rockwell. “They had the tempo the whole game. That”s not the brand of basketball we play; we got away from it.”
Clear Lake, meanwhile, rebounded admirably from a 75-47 shellacking at the hands of Kelseyville on Tuesday night.
“Middletown has a lot of talent and they”re well coached, but we met the challenge tonight,” said Glenn Wienke.
“I couldn”t be prouder of our hustle,” the Cardinal coach added.
Superior play by guards Tanner Mansell and Kyle Donald, who scored 18 and 17 points respectively, gave Clear Lake the advantage. Steven Edwards added 13, and Adrian Perez, who played his third game after being promoted from the JV squad, 13.
The Mustangs” Bo Sheffer tied Mansell with 18 points to share the lead in scoring.
The fates turned against Middletown in a tell-tale second quarter. After leading halfway through the period, the Mustangs suffered a colossal collapse. Donald hit a 3-pointer with 4:15 left in quarter to ignite what became a 14-point run. The Mustangs did a lot to dig their own hole, picking that spate of time to play their worst basketball of the night. They had held a 24-20 lead just before Clear Lake stepped up to take command. But they scored only three more points while missing eight consecutive shots and turning the ball over three times.
It was a costly lapse considering Middletown outscored the Cardinals in every other quarter.
To their credit, the Mustangs rallied to within three of the lead twice in the fourth quarter at 56-53 and 57-54. But it was too little too late.
It was difficult to believe this was the same Clear Lake team that was so badly overwhelmed by Kelseyville two nights earlier.
“We are a better team,” said Weinke. “What hurt in that game was a lot of turnovers combined with about 12-percent shooting.”
Wienke had high praise for all three of his guards — Donald, Mansell and Edwards.
“Those guys played great,” he said. “I”ve never been more proud of these guys than I was tonight.”
In the early varsity game:
Lower Lake 52, Upper Lake 40
The Lower Lake Trojans broke open a close game in the fourth quarter and beat the Upper Lake Cougars to improve to 1-1 in the Hoop Classic standings as Upper Lake fell to 0-3.
Nick Steward poured in 22 points for Lower Lake, but the game”s most memorable moment occurred at the end of the first half when Alphonsos Daniels threw in a long 3-pointer from three-quarters court to erase a 19-18 deficit and give the Trojans a 21-19 lead. The shot caught all net and drew cheers from Lower Lake and Upper Lake fans alike.
The game seesawed back and forth until early in the fourth quarter. After Upper Lake”s Billy Armstrong scored to cut Lower Lake”s lead to 39-34 with just under six minutes remaining in the game, the Trojans took control with an 11-0 run that featured points from five different Lower Lake players, including four from Scott Zandt.
Until then, Steward was pretty much the Lower Lake offense — he scored 20 of the team”s 35 points through three quarters.
After Steward, Lower Lake”s scoring was spread around. Joe Taylor was the next highest point man with seven.
Armstrong”s 11 points led Upper Lake and Tyler Warren had 10.
