RICHMOND — It wasn”t the way the Kelseyville Knights wanted to go out, but the Salesian Pride isn”t your ordinary team.
Minus a starter and their top reserve, the Knights ended a 20-win season with a 67-14 loss to No. 1-seeded Salesian in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division IV boys” basketball playoffs on Wednesday night in Richmond.
Kelseyville”s Wyatt Ferrell made the trip to Richmond but couldn”t take the court because of illness and sixth-man Devon Call was away on family business, according to Kelseyville coach Scott Conrad.
“Max (Huff) and (Dustin) Thaxton did a great job of leading us right down to the end,” Conrad said of the Knights” top two scorers on the season. With Ferrell out of action, Thaxton, a shooting guard, had to run the point. Both players ended their careers with six points.
Junior forward Jabari Bird”s 16 points led Salesian (27-2), the defending Division IV champion and last year”s state runner-up.
“Jabari Bird is at a different level from everyone else,” Conrad said.
Salesian”s overall quickness, depth and jumping ability were simply too much for the undermanned Knights to handle.
“We weren”t overwhelmed by their ball pressure but we made some lazy passes early on and it was 12-0 before you knew it,” Conrad said.
Salesian had a 27-3 lead after one quarter.
“Even when we had open looks, we just couldn”t put them down,” Conrad said.
Kelseyville, the No. 16 seed in the original 16-team Division IV field, finishes the regular season at 20-6 and Conrad said that while the “sting” of the playoff loss might hurt for a few days, he wants his team – and its nine seniors – to know that they had a great season.
“Twenty wins … they should feel good about it,” Conrad said.
Salesian advances to Saturday”s quarterfinals to play Berean Christian (17-10). Other first-round winners Wednesday were Piedmont – 45-42 over Middletown – Arcata, Marin Catholic, St. Patrick/St. Vincent, Cardinal Newman and Justin-Siena. All the higher seeds won in the first round.
Kelseyville will have to replace all five of its starters next season as the team returns only four players, all with limited experience.
“We took a lot of our JV kids down here with us,” Conrad said. “It was good for our kids to experience it (the playoffs) even if it was a butt kicking.”
Despite the lopsided nature of the game, Conrad said the Salesian players and coaches were “all class.”
Added Conrad, “What a classy program. They do a great job over there and their kids are great.”
Notes: Huff, a three-year varsity starter, finishes his career with 1,175 points, good for 17th place (tie) on Lake County”s list of career scoring leaders … The only other Kelseyville boy to score more points during his career was Conrad (1,717) … The school”s all-time scoring leader among girls is Shalonda Bowden (1,201).
