CLOVERDALE >> The mantra at Kelseyville is don’t look down the road, look only as far as your next game. And the way the Knights are playing, why go against tradition?
Kelseyville, the defending North Central League I champion, scored its second straight huge road victory on Tuesday night, beating the Cloverdale Eagles 49-46 and putting a choke hold on the varsity boys basketball league race in the process.
The Knights (9-0, 18-3) now own a three-game lead over Clear Lake, Cloverdale and Middletown – all 6-3 – in the NCL I standings with only five games remaining. The schedule also favors them as they have only one game remaining against those three teams – Friday’s road contest in Middletown.
Kelseyville will still keep taking them one at a time, according to head coach Scott Conrad, but at this rate the league title could be a done deal by sometime next week.
“We’re in a pretty good place and I know this is going to sound boring, but we’re still taking them one game at a time,” Conrad said after the Knights escaped the Cloverdale gym with a win despite missing five free throws down the stretch.
“We were lucky to get out of there with a win,” Conrad said. “Both teams played good defense but both teams were a little out of sync on offense. It’s hard to tell if that was all because of the defense or not. We certainly looked like we had heavy legs.”
With Cloverdale’s defense doing everything it could to slow down Kelseyville senior point guard Trey Conrad, the Knights needed someone else to step up and guards Robert Chavez and Adrian Villalobos answered the call and helped run the offense.
“Chavez was solid, he did a great job,” Conrad said.
The Knights also found other scorers although Conrad still managed 10 points.
“It opened some things up,” Conrad said of all the attention the Eagles were giving to son Trey. “And we’re not a one- or two-man show,” Conrad said.
Just ask Jon Vanderwall, who hurt the Eagles with a Kelseyville-best 17 points and 10 rebounds. Pfann added nine points, Vermontay Luia had six and Scott Sanchez chipped in another five.
In a back-and-forth game, Kelseyville used a 20-14 third quarter to open up a 35-31 lead. Both teams had opportunities down the stretch but both had a hard time making their free throws.
“We missed five, including the front end of four one-and-ones,” Conrad said. “But Cloverdale missed four free throws. What we did do was rebound and we had some big ones late in the game. We rebounded a couple of our own missed free throws and while we didn’t score, we were able to use up some clock.”
Conrad said he was most impressed with his players finding a way to a win in a hostile environment on a night when they weren’t playing their best basketball.
“That’s huge,” he said.
Cloverdale won the junior varsity game 63-46. Bryan Newberg led the Knights with 10 points, Bodhi Baird finished with eight while Chase Larsen and Cory Holt each had six.
