CLOVERDALE >> Winning on the road is tough enough in the North Central League I. Winning at Cloverdale is next to impossible, especially when Eagles center Marcus Poe is on his game, which he was on Friday night against the Kelseyville Knights.
Poe, a 6-foot-6 junior center, scored 27 points as the Eagles beat the Knights 43-33 in varsity boys’ basketball action. A win would have elevated Kelseyville (5-3 league, 13-6 overall) into a three-way tie for first place because of Clear Lake’s 47-44 upset of Willits at Lakeport. Instead, Cloverdale (7-1) now owns a one-game lead over Willits (6-2) and a two-game lead over the Knights (5-3). Cloverdale and Willits square off Tuesday night in Willits.
“On defense we did an outstanding job and we did an outstanding job on the boards, but we just didn’t do enough on offense tonight,” Kelseyville coach Scott Conrad said. “We missed too many 5-footers.”
It was a close game throughout. Cloverdale led 18-17 at halftime and 34-30 through three quarters.
“We weren’t real sharp in attacking the basket and we sputtered on offense at times,” Conrad added.
Brandon Huber led the Knights with 11 points and Kyle Ellis added 10.
Poe had three slam dunks among his team-leading point total for Cloverdale.
“He’s too long, too athletic for us,” Conrad said. “He was the difference.”
A turning point in the game came late in the third quarter and early in the fourth. Kelseyville had closed to 31-30 with only a couple of seconds left in the third period when John McMillan took the inbounds pass and tossed in a shot that traveled three-quarters of the court at the buzzer, making it 34-30 in the Eagles’ favor.
Cloverdale hit a 3-pointer on its opening possession of the fourth quarter to go up by seven.
“That was a punch in the gut,” Conrad said. “It set us back on our heels a little bit.”
