LAKE COUNTY >> It’s almost that time.
The 2016-17 high school basketball season unofficially opens Friday night when Lower Lake High School’s varsity girls and boys basketball teams hold their annual alumni games beginning with the girls at 5:30 p.m. and the boys at 7 p.m.
On Tuesday, Clear Lake High School’s boys host Rincon Valley Christian while Middletown High School’s girls host Healdsburg in North Coast Section Foundation Games, proceeds of which go to the section’s scholarship program. While they will look and feel like real games, the Foundation Game final scores do not count toward the won-loss records of the participating teams.
On Wednesday, Clear Lake High School’s junior varsity and varsity boys teams are home to host two alumni games, the first of which tips off at 5 p.m.
Middletown’s varsity boys officially open the basketball season in Lake County with a Nov. 28 non-league home game against Emery. On Nov. 29, the Upper Lake girls and boys are home to host Kelseyville in a four-game non-league set (JV girls, JV boys, varsity girls, varsity boys) beginning at 3:30 p.m.
Two Lake County players open the season with more than 1,000 career points and will be climbing the county leaders ladder as the season progresses. Upper Lake senior Natalie Karlsson begins the new season with 1,109 points, ranking her 25th on the county’s career scoring list, while Kelseyville senior Kyle Ellis opens with 1,036, ranking him 39th.
A handful of other players are within range of their 1,000th career point this season. Five players reached that milestone last season – Karlsson, Ellis, Riley Goff of Kelseyville, Taylor Helms of Clear Lake and Ashley Welton, who became Middletown’s all-time career scoring leader with 1,314 points.
