KELSEYVILLE >> Scott Sanchez was money in the bank for the Kelseyville Knights late in their 58-49 victory over the Elsie Allen Lobos in the winner’s semifinal round of the Stokes Tournament on Friday afternoon at Kelseyville High School.
Kelseyville (5-1) plays undefeated Piedmont (10-0) Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. for the Stokes Tournament title.
In a back-and-forth game where the two teams were tied with two minutes remaining, it was Sanchez grabbing a critical offensive rebound and passing the ball to open teammate Trey Conrad, who buried a 3-pointer to put the Knights in front to stay.
Sanchez also came up with a steal and went coast to coast for layup in the fourth quarter when he scored half of his eight points.
“He also had a chip-in basket that was huge,” Kelseyville coach Scott Conrad said. “He does everything well. If I had to describe him in one word it would be ‘winner.’”
Kelseyville outscored Elsie Allen 15-6 in the fourth quarter to pull out the hard-fought victory.
“It was a really fun game, back and forth the whole way,” Conrad said.
Randy Pfann led the Knights with 19 points, 13 of those coming in the first quarter. Conrad added 16 points, including three 3-pointers, and also led the Kelseyville with eight assists. Jon Vanderwall added six points and nine rebounds.
“One of the best games I’ve seen Jon play,” Conrad said. “He was a beast in there.”
Pfann and Conrad, two of the team’s senior leaders – Sanchez is another – combined to go 11-for-12 at the free-throw line.
Nik Burns led Elsie Allen with 17 points, including three 3-pointers.
Elsie Allen plays Middletown in Saturday’s third-place game at 4:30 p.m.
In other Stokes boys games Friday:
Piedmont 64, Middletown 52
Middletown matched undefeated Piedmont nearly point for point during a 27-26 first half, but the Highlanders (10-0) pulled away in the second half to beat the Mustangs and advance to Saturday’s Stokes Tournament championship game against host Kelseyville. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m.
The Mustangs (6-3) move on to the third-place game against Elsie Allen on Saturday at 4:30 p.m. but will be minus some key pieces, according to head coach G.J. Rockwell, who will be without brothers Andres and Sam Cervantes (trip to Mexico) and possibly Luke Holt, who sustained an elbow injury against Piedmont. The Mustangs are already without Noah Brown (knee) and Victor Guzman (shoulder).
“We’ve got our work cut out for us against a pretty good Elsie Allen team,” Rockwell said.
Middletown’s coach said he was pleased with the overall effort turned in by the Mustangs against the Highlanders, but a stretch during the third quarter helped Piedmont gain momentum.
“We turned the ball over too much,” Rockwell said. “We started forcing things a little bit. They had a 9-0 run to open it up on us and while we traded baskets with them after that, we couldn’t recover.”
Piedmont, who Rockwell described as a “big, strong team with depth,” had only one player score in double digits — David Kisieu with 10 points — but did have six players score seven or more points.
“They’ll sub in four at a time,” Rockwell said.
Thomas Cook (16 points) Andres Cervantes (13 points) and Holt (11 points) carried the scoring load for the Mustangs, who are participating in their third tournament of the preseason. They finished second in the Pierce Tournament in early December and third at last weekend’s Redwood Empire Invitational in Healdsburg.
Upper Lake 70, Calistoga 35
Bouncing back from a first-round loss to Elsie Allen on Thursday, the Upper Lake Cougars took apart the Calistoga Wildcats in the consolation semifinals and will play Lower Lake on Saturday in the consolation championship game at 1:30 p.m.
“It will be interesting,” Upper Lake coach Justin Dutcher said. “It’s fun to play those bigger schools.”
Upper Lake (8-1) is off to the best start by a varsity boys basketball team at the school since the 2004-05 club won 13 of its first 14.
The Cougars had a 17-10 lead after one quarter and never looked back, pushing their advantage to 34-19 at halftime.
Kenny Hodges and Dylan Armstrong scored 15 points apiece to lead the team, all of Armstrong’s points coming on 3-pointers.
“Dylan was on fire from the outside,” Dutcher said of the junior, who was 5-for-8 from behind the 3-point arc. “We had a good night shooting the ball, except for our free throws (7-for-16).”
Calistoga suited up only six players for the game. One of them, Cesar Ayala, scored 25 of the Wildcats’ points.
“We had a lot of trouble stopping him,” Dutcher said.
All 10 Cougars in uniform reached the scoring column. Gio Martinez finished with 10 points and Bailee Byrd had seven, including two 3-pointers.
Lower Lake 74, Foresthill 48
Playing four solid quarters of basketball, the Lower Lake Trojans defeated Foresthill in the consolation semifinals of the Stokes Tournament. The game was moved to Lower Lake because a scheduled 9:30 a.m. start at Kelseyville on Friday morning conflicted with the finals schedule of the Trojans’ players, so the contest was moved to Lower Lake and rescheduled for 2 p.m. to avoid a forfeit situation, which neither team wanted.
Lower Lake (2-7) meets Upper Lake on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. in the consolation championship game.
“We played a full four quarters. The biggest difference is we had energy for four quarters, not two, not three,” Lower Lake coach Tim Biasotti said.
Hokulani Wickard and Izzac Carver finished with 17 points apiece, Elijah Hernandez added 11 and Darian James seven as the Trojans benefited from a balanced scoring attack that has mostly eluded them this preseason.
“My guards up top created a lot of opportunities,” Biasotti said of James, Carver and Taylor Scott. “Our defense put a lot of pressure on them and created a lot of steals and turnovers.”
