MIDDLETOWN — It was a game that accentuated the negative and didn”t advance the positive by much. Middletown, the winner in a battle of two teams tied for second place in the North Central League I standings, had 11 turnovers in the first half and shot a desolate 20 of 55 from the floor. Clear Lake wasn”t much better at 24-for-54.
“That”ll kill ya,” said Middletown coach G.J. Rockwell after the Mustangs escaped with a 60-55 victory, “but hey our kids played hard.”
Clear Lake coach Glenn Wienke, in turn, lamented, “We”re not making excuses, but if we”d have made more of our baskets … well, we missed a lot of easy, easy shots.”
Still, the game, which improved Middletown”s league record to 5-2 and its overall mark to 12-6, was nothing if not intense. The Mustangs walked away winners only after yielding the lead for a moment early in fourth quarter, 45-44, to the Cardinals, who dropped to 4-3 in the league and 11-7 overall.
“There was a lot of intensity,” Rockwell agreed. “Anyone who”s been watching our games knows there”s no patsies in our league. Everybody plays hard, all the coaches are good coaches, every night”s a dog fight.”
The victory was the second in a row for Middletown after losing to league leader Kelseyville. The loss was a disappointing one for the Cardinals who reached a season high last Friday by soundly defeating Kelseyville on its own wood. It was all the more disappointing because the Cardinals lost after taking away the Mustangs” game of pounding the ball inside, which accounted for several of their turnovers.
“We played a tough game inside,” Wienke acknowledged, “but we were down by five at halftime.”
The Mustangs overcame Clear Lake”s tenacity with their rebounding, swamping the Cardinals on the boards with a 36-13 advantage.
“The guys played really well again,” said Rockwell. “They stuck with it. They pounded the boards and stuck with the gameplan and it worked out for them.”
Shooting guard Luke Humphrey led Mustang scoring for a 10th time this season with 16 points, six of them coming on free throws. Nate Snodgrass had 10 as the only other Middletown player in double figures. Kyle Donald matched Humphrey”s total for Clear Lake. Adrian Perez had 13 and Steven Edwards had 11 for the Cards.
The defining moment of the game occurred when lightly played Jared Carrillo, who wears “00” on his jersey, converted a shot from the perimeter with just under six minutes left in the game. The 3-pointer broke a 46-46 tie and the Mustangs built their lead to 58-52 down the stretch. Tanner Alves held off the Cardinals by sinking a pair of free throws with 3:02 remaining to make it 58-52.
Nate Snodgrass, another Middletown reserve, iced the issue with two more from the line for the Mustangs” final points.
“I liked Nate off the bench. He gave us good minutes,” said Rockwell
Rockwell also liked the Mustangs” confidence, reflected to a great extent in the play of Blaine Amos, Middletown”s big man at 6-foot-7, and point guard Ben Pike, at 5-8 its smallest.
“Yeah, I think they”re starting to get a little more confident,” Rockwell said of the Mustangs. “As a coach you hope they start jelling toward the end of the season. There”s spurts of a good basketball team out there and then all of a sudden there are spurts of … I don”t know.”
It was a game that accentuated the negative, but in the last analysis there was a lot positive about it, too. It was, after all, one heckuva battle.
