LAKEPORT >> Reaching the championship game of the North Coast Section Division IV girls basketball playoffs carries its own rewards, not the least of which is the opportunity to play for a section title and the right to move on to the NorCal playoffs next week.
Standing in Clear Lake’s way of a berth in the Division V finals are the Urban Blues of San Francisco and those two teams tangle tonight at 7 p.m. in a semifinal-round game at Urban High School. The winner will draw either St. Bernard (Eureka) or International (San Francisco) in the sectional championship game either Friday or Saturday at a site to be determined.
While the bottom half of the Division V playoff bracket has played out to form with No. 2 seed St. Bernard (18-8) hosting No. 3 International (24-5), not so the top half where No. 4 Urban (12-16) is hosting No. 8 Clear Lake (20-9). The No. 1 seed is long gone as Convent of the Sacred Heart lost to No. 16 Upper Lake in a first-round game, and Clear Lake dispatched Upper Lake with a 48-40 victory in the quarterfinals on Wednesday night in Lakeport.
Urban and Clear Lake have no common opponents this season. However, Convent of the Sacred Heart did beat Urban twice during the regular season by final scores of 54-46 and 62-42. The Blues also lost to No. 3 seed International 39-36 earlier this season.
“I know they’re tall, but we’re fairly tall too,” Clear Lake coach Kory Reynolds said of a Blues’ roster that features five players between 5-feet-10 and 6-foot-1. “They average only about 46 points a game which is good for us.”
If the Blues are trying to figure out who Clear Lake’s primary scoring threat is, they have their work cut out. The Cardinals are a pretty diversified group when it comes to the scoring column and have had a different scoring leader in each of their last three games, something that has been a season-long trend. Alakszay led the team with 13 points in the win over Upper Lake, but two other Cardinals – Valerie Hutton and Kortnie Reynolds – finished with nine and eight points, respectively. In a 61-28 first-round playoff win over Holy Names, Hutton led the way with 19 points while Alakszay and Reynolds each had nine and Camille Donald eight. In the opening round of the North Central League I postseason tournament on Feb. 16, Donald had a team-best 17 points in a 55-51 loss to Kelseyville while Alakszay finished with eight points and Hutton and Jasmine Rice seven each.
It was a balanced scoring attack that also helped the 1988-89 Clear Lake Cardinals (28-2) to a Division V championship and a berth in the NorCal finals. The many stars on that team included Jenny Schaal, Diane Peterson, Shelly Goodwin, Diana Brown and Leslie Beebout.
