WILLITS — Needing a win to clinch the outright North Central League I North varsity girls” basketball championship on Friday night, the Lower Lake Trojans didn”t even come close, falling to the Willits Wolverines 58-38 at Willits.
Lower Lake (6-1, 16-8) was hoping for a repeat performance of its 50-38 win over the Wolverines, the defending North champions, last month in Lower Lake. The rematch proved to be all Willits from the get-go.
“They had girls making shots from everywhere,” Lower Lake coach Jim Salmina said of the Wolverines, who were led by a balanced attack that featured 13 points from Brenna Jessup and 11 each from Alicia Mehtlan and Whitney Dunham.
Willits led 17-5 after one quarter and increased its advantage to 33-15 by halftime. Lower Lake scored the first five points of the third quarter to close to 33-20, but the Wolverines scored the final 17 points of the quarter for a 50-20 lead.
Willits snapped Lower Lake”s nine-game winning streak and moved into a virtual first-place tie atop the North standings at 5-1.
Jonesha Beasley and Kelsie Shoffeitt paced Lower Lake with eight points apiece.
“I don”t want the girls to forget all that we”ve accomplished this season,” Salmina said. “We”re still tied for the thing (league race).”
Lower Lake has one league game remaining and Willits two.
In other girls” action Friday:
Clear Lake 36, Upper Lake 24
At Upper Lake, Coree Alexander scored seven points and nine of her teammates also cracked the scoring column as the Clear Lake Cardinals beat the Upper Lake Cougars in NCL I South action.
Clear Lake improved to 2-5 in the South standings and 8-12 overall while Upper Lake fell to 0-6 and 4-18.
Upper Lake trailed by only a 20-14 margin at halftime despite making just two of 12 free throws in the first half. The Cougars were 8-for-22 from the stripe for the game.
“We”ve been talking about free throws all week but it didn”t help,” Upper Lake coach Mike Smith said. “We were getting looks, driving to the hoop and drawing fouls, but we couldn”t make our free throws.”
The Cougars trailed by the same six-point deficit ? 23-17 ? entering the fourth quarter.
“Clear Lake kept sending wave after wave (of fresh legs) against us and just wore us down,” Smith said.
Katherine Edmonds” nine points paced the Cougars and Shayla Wyman and Sierra Coleman added six apiece.
Boys” basketball
Lower Lake 65, Willits 52
At Lower Lake, a 19-8 third quarter propelled the Lower Lake Trojans past the Willits Wolverines in NCL I North boys” action.
It was a far cry from Lower Lake”s 77-42 loss at Willits last month, a game that ended with a running clock.
Seven Lower Lake players cracked the scoring column and all of them had at least six points.
“When you”re playing good as a team, you have balanced scoring and we had that tonight,” Lower Lake coach Marty Udy said.
Joe Taylor led the way with 17 points and a season-high 13 rebounds to go along with seven assists.
“He nearly had a triple-double,” Udy said.
Nick Steward added 12 points and Kyle Buckingham had 11.
Willits took a 26-25 lead into the third quarter, a period that Lower Lake dominated.
“I thought we came out and took control of the tempo of the game,” Udy said. “We shared the ball really well. More importantly, we limited them to eight points playing man-to-man defense.”
Lower Lake led by as many as 20 points in the fourth quarter and Willits was never closer than 10.
Odeh Karkar led the Wolverines with 22 points.
The Trojans wrap up their North schedule Tuesday night at Middletown (4-2, 15-9).
