UKIAH >> A turnover down the stretch sealed Lower Lake’s fate in a 60-55 loss to Maria Carrillo in the consolation championship game of the 49th annual Fred Iten Invitational Basketball Tournament on Saturday at Ukiah High School.
The Trojans (1-2) had the ball trailing 58-55 with 23 seconds remaining when they turned it over to the Pumas. Lower Lake had to foul and Maria Carrillo sank both of its free throws to go up by five.
After a poor effort on Friday in a 48-45 win over a Fort Bragg team missing most of its roster, the Trojans responded with a much better effort against Maria Carrillo, according to Lower Lake coach Shannon Tubbs.
“We had a team meeting to talk about it,” Tubbs said. “The kids responded pretty well. We did a lot better with our ball movement. We cleaned up a lot of stuff that we hadn’t been doing very well.”
One thing the Trojans struggled with was keeping an eye on Maria Carrillo guard Kurgan Brown, who led all scorers with 29 points, including eight 3-pointers, some of which were launched from well behind the 3-point arc.
“We kept losing him,” Tubbs said. “He was hitting them (3-pointers) all over the place. He shot some of them from 8 feet behind the line.”
Jordan McGrath’s 17 points powered the Trojans’ offense. Ethan Watson and All-Tournament selection Hokulani Wickard finished with nine points apiece.
The Trojans aren’t quite at full strength yet with veteran guard Marlon Jones recovering from a football injury.
“He started practicing this week so we should be getting our floor leader back pretty soon,” Tubbs said of the senior.
Lower Lake begins a four-game stretch in four days beginning tonight with a home game against Elsie Allen of Santa Rosa. On Wednesday, the Trojans play Hamilton City at 3 p.m. in the opening round of the Live Oak Tournament, which runs through Friday.
