UPPER LAKE >> Natalie Karlsson’s season numbers are certainly worthy of MVP consideration, but it’s a rare thing indeed when a player not a member of a championship team ends up with the award.
It happened twice when North Central League II girls’ basketball coaches recently met to select their All-League team. Senior center Olivia DeGraca of the second-place St. Vincent Mustangs and junior guard Karlsson of the third-place Upper Lake Cougars were voted co-MVPs. League champion Sonoma Academy also had a player up for consideration but sophomore Kylie Olson didn’t receive as many votes as DeGraca or Karlsson.
“Chloe probably would have won it if she had finished the season,” Upper Lake coach Mike Smith said of Sonoma Academy’s ultra-talented senior Chloe Colbert, who was lost late in the league season because of an ankle injury.
Smith said it wasn’t hard making a case for Karlsson as league MVP.
“She was the league’s leading scorer,” Smith said. “Teams had to put two or three of their best defenders on her to stop her. When they didn’t, we beat St. Vincent and we almost beat Sonoma Academy the second time we played them.”
Because of Upper Lake’s third-place finish, Smith said he even toyed with the idea of not nominating Karlsson for MVP because she was a slam-dunk first-team selection anyway, but that Sonoma Academy coach Kevin Christensen encouraged him to do so.
“He put the bug in my ear,” Smith said.
A ballhandler first and a scorer second during her freshman and sophomore seasons for the Upper Lake varsity, Karlsson was asked to become more of a scorer during the last offseason because of team losses to graduation. In the months leading up to the 2015-16 season she dedicated herself to improving her jump shot, according to Smith.
“We asked her to become our scorer and she filled that role,” Smith said.
Indeed.
Karlsson scored a Lake County-best 550 points, including career point No. 1,000, during the season, averaged 20.4 points a game (tops among the county’s girls and second-best overall), and was the county co-leader in 3-pointers (74).
Not all of the improvements Karlsson made between her sophomore and junior years were of the basketball variety, according to Smith, who said his star player demonstrated the maturity required to lead the team.
“She understood the kind of pressure that she was going to be put under and accepted it,” Smith said.
While Karlsson is now looked upon as a prolific scorer, which she is, her ballhandling skills make her dangerous in other ways, according to Smith.
“She showed this season that she completely trusts her teammates. She’s a scorer because that’s what we needed her to do but she loves getting the ball to an open teammate, making that pass that really gets the crowd going.”
With Upper Lake returning nearly every player on its roster next season, the Cougars not only will be looking for a fourth straight winning season but for that elusive NCL II championship that they’ve flirted with in past few years.
“Depending how much her teammates improve around her, she might not need to score as much next season,” Smith said. “She may score more or less, but the better her teammates get, the better she’ll get.”
Karlsson was one of two Upper Lake players to land a spot on the All-League team, which is voted upon by the league’s coaches. The other was Kejhana Taylor, a junior post, who just missed a spot on the second team and ended up as an honorable mention.
“She missed by a vote,” Smith said of Taylor.
Joining Karlsson on the first team along with DeGraca and Reed were St. Vincent’s Taylor Owen and Roseland Prep’s Gaby Roldan.
Second-team players were freshman Caroline Chambers of Rincon Valley Christian, senior Stacey Olson of Sonoma Academy, sophomore Jada Roberts of Technology, junior Emmely Magana of Roseland Prep and sophomore Clare Galten of St. Vincent.
Honorable mentions along with Taylor were senior Caroline Hogan of Rincon Valley Christian, sophomore Gilda Rojas of Calistoga, senior Claudia Silva of Roseland Prep, junior McKenna Wilson-Kay of St. Vincent, senior Clara Spars of Sonoma Academy, senior Katie Stagnoli of Technology, and junior Samantha Strode of Tomales.
