LOWER LAKE >> In a battle of undefeated teams, the Clear Lake Cardinals rallied from a double-digit deficit late in the fourth quarter to stun the Lower Lake Trojans 59-58 in a North Central League I varsity girls basketball thriller on Tuesday night in Lower Lake.
Valerie Hutton buried two free throws with six seconds remaining for the game-tying and game-winning points. Clear Lake (3-0 league, 12-2 overall) remains tied with Cloverdale (3-0) for the league lead while Lower Lake (2-1, 11-3) drops a game behind the leaders.
“It’s a big win, they didn’t give up,” Clear Lake coach Kory Reynolds said after the Cardinals wiped out a 14-point deficit in the final minutes.
Clear Lake was trailing by 10 points with two minutes remaining when it jumped into a full-court man press that produced three steals, each leading to a 3-pointer – the first one by Corin Alakszay, the next by Camille Donald and the final one by Kortnie Reynolds — that cut Lower Lake’s lead to 58-57.
After forcing another turnover in the final seconds, the Cardinals worked the ball inside to Hutton who was fouled while shooting. She stepped to the line and calmly sank both free throws to put Clear Lake ahead 59-58.
“Hutton drained them both,” Reynolds said.
“I didn’t think we had fouled her at first,” Lower Lake coach Dave Milano said. “But when I saw it (on film), it was a good call.”
Milano said the Trojans, who were outscored 29-18 in the fourth quarter, made the mistake of believing the game was over with two minutes remaining.
“We were celebrating,” Milano said. “Then four to five key things went wrong. The truth of the matter is that we were outplayed and I was outcoached.”
Lower Lake took a 40-30 lead into the fourth quarter of what was primarily a defensive struggle up to that point. “They just hit a bunch of clutch shots,” Milano said. “They were hitting everything in the fourth quarter.”
“That’s funny because it seemed like they (Trojans) were hitting everything before that,” Reynolds said. “We just rode a huge wave of momentum in that fourth quarter.” Donald scored nine of her team-leading 18 points in the final period, including two big 3-pointers, while Alakszay had seven of her nine points and Reynolds six of her 14 in the fourth quarter.
“Camille did a great job taking the ball to the basket,” Reynolds added.
Clear Lake’s defense set a goal of limiting Lower Lake’s top scorer, Aleia Milano, to 20 points and the Cardinals held her to a season-low 13, which is less than half of her season average. Even so, they had their hands full against the other Trojans, namely Vanessa Hughes, who led Lower Lake with 18 points. Samantha Caires added 13 and Katelyn Farrell 11.
“Hughes played a really good game,” Reynolds said. “We had a hard time stopping her.”
Lower Lake’s job doesn’t get any easier Friday as the Trojans travel to Cloverdale. Clear Lake returns home to play Willits.
Clear Lake won the junior varsity game 48-38.
In other girls basketball action Tuesday:
Kelseyville 60, Middletown 25
At Middletown, the battle-tested Kelseyville Knights finally registered league win No. 1 at the expense of the Middletown Mustangs.
No one had a tougher two-game stretch to open league play than did coach Jim Hale’s Knights, who dropped a 43-41 overtime thriller to Clear Lake in their opener and a 39-34 decision to Cloverdale. Both games were on the road as was Tuesday’s contest with Middletown. Kelseyville (1-2, 10-5) finally gets a home game Friday against St. Helena.
“It was nice to finally get one,” Hale said of the league victory. “Middletown was scrappy and pretty fast, but we were able to move the ball and we got a lot of good looks and good shots.”
Kelseyville’s post play hurt Middletown time and time again. Grace Davidson finished with a double-double of 14 points and 10 rebounds, Bib Hamner added six points and 10 rebounds, and Linda Baqleh had six points and eight rebounds.
“The posts did a good job tonight and Payton (Conrad) did a good job of initiating our offense,” Hale said of his junior point guard.
Conrad finished with a team-leading 16 points and is now 22 away from 1,000 for her career.
Abbey Brown’s six points led the Mustangs, who are having a hard time breaking out of their offensive funk, according to Middletown coach Anthony Bazzano.
“We’re struggling to put the round, bouncy thing through the cylinder,” Bazzano said. “Doubt creeps in and it’s that much tougher. Our inexperience is showing too.”
Hanna Morris and Breanne Jones each had five points for the Mustangs (1-2, 8-6), who lost control of the game during a 23-2 second quarter.
