CLOVERDALE >> A 24-8 third quarter propelled Cloverdale past the Kelseyville Knights and atop the North Central League I varsity boys’ basketball standings on Tuesday night as the Eagles won 57-45 at Cloverdale High School.
“They came out shooting pretty well (in the second half) and hit a couple of 3s,” Kelseyville coach Scott Conrad said of the Eagles (7-2), who are now tied with Lower Lake and Fort Bragg for first place in the league standings. “We lost our defensive assignments a couple of times, I’m not sure quite why, and we gave them some wide open shots.”
Cloverdale led 25-24 at halftime.
“Our kids played hard, we just couldn’t get enough down,” Conrad said of the Kelseyville offense.
Nick Pfann scored a team-leading 17 points despite playing with a nasty thigh bruise suffered in a bicycle crash and Kyle Ellis, despite taking a hard hit to his nose during the game, finished with 11 points. Ean Valenzuela added eight.
“Pfann and Ellis worked hard,” Conrad said.
Kelseyville is now 6-3 in league and 16-5 overall.
Jayson McMillan’s 17 points, 14 of those coming in the second half, led the Eagles.
“McMillan and (Marcus) Poe took over in that third quarter,” Conrad said of Cloverdale’s top two players. “Poe didn’t score many points but he was really active.”
Kelseyville defeated Cloverdale 41-40 on Jan. 8 in Kelseyville.
Kelseyville returns home Thursday to play Willits before hitting the road again on Saturday to take on Lower Lake, which lost 83-52 at St. Helena on Tuesday to fall into a first-place tie with Cloverdale.
Cloverdale beat Kelseyville in the junior varsity game as well, 59-47. Randy Pfann led the Knights with 13 points, Adrian Villalobos added 11 and Scott Sanchez had nine.
