ALAMEDA >> A season during which the Kelseyville Knights accomplished all of their goals came to an end on Saturday night as the St. Joseph Notre Dame Pilots prevailed 66-42 in the quarterfinal round of the North Coast Section Division IV girls basketball playoffs at Alameda.
Kelseyville (26-4) fell behind early against St. Joseph (25-4) and never recovered.
“They’re very aggressive, pretty quick and long,” Kelseyville coach Jim Hale said. “Once we got acclimated to that speed we did pretty well.”
St. Joseph, the No. 2 seed in Division IV, moves on to the semifinals on Wednesday against No. 3 Arcata.
The Pilots led 18-9 after one quarter but it was still very much a game at halftime with Kelseyville trailing only 32-21.
“We felt pretty good about being down only 11 points at halftime,” Hale said.
The feeling didn’t last long as the Knights opened the third quarter with three straight turnovers and the Pilots converted all three into baskets to open up an 18-point lead. It was 57-35 by quarter’s end.
“The girls battled the whole game,” Hale said.
Haleigh Meyer and Alma Perez scored 13 and 12 points, respectively, to pace the Knights. It was the final high school game for both players.
“It’s such a big difference,” Hale said when asked to compare the ultra-competitive Division IV playoffs to the rest of Kelseyville’s season. “You get your team prepared the best you can, that’s all you can do.”
Kelseyville, the North Central League I co-champion along with Lower Lake this season, reached the quarterfinals with a 71-62 win over Fortuna in the opening round.
“Our girls set goals this season and they did everything they wanted,” Hale said. “It was tough for our seniors to go out like that, but they know we had a great season. This was a great group to coach and we get to hang a pennant right next to the one we won last year.”
