SAN FRANCISCO >> A handful of missed layups in the first half and too many second-half turnovers came back to haunt the Clear Lake Cardinals in a 52-49 loss to the No. 1-seeded Urban Blues in the semifinal round of the North Coast Section Division V girls basketball playoffs on Wednesday night in San Francisco.
Urban (24-5) advances to the Division V championship game on Saturday night against No. 2 seed St. Bernard’s of Eureka, a 33-31 winner over No. 3 University High (San Francisco) in Wednesday’s other semifinal.
Clear Lake, the No. 4 seed, isn’t done yet. By virtue of reaching the sectional semifinals, the Cardinals (23-5) are guaranteed a berth in next week’s NorCal Division V playoffs. The field, which has room for 16 teams, will be seeded and announced on Sunday. First-round games are Wednesday.
The Cardinals were trying to become the first Lake County girls basketball team since Upper Lake in 1994 to win a sectional title. They had a 10-6 lead after one quarter against Urban and a 21-20 advantage at halftime.
“It’s hard to walk away from there with a loss,” Clear Lake coach Kory Reynolds said. “They’re not a better team than we are, they’re not.”
Reynolds said the Cardinals’ made too many poor decisions when passing the ball and went away from the gameplan too often. They also let the Blues dictate the pace of the game.
“Their game is a little faster than our game,” Reynolds said. “You can’t get rushed into their game, which is what we let happen. We can play fast, but not out-of-control fast.”
Averaging around 15 turnovers a game this season, the Cardinals were in the low- to mid-20s against Urban.
“At one point (in the second half) we made three or four turnovers in a row,” he said.
Urban parlayed enough of Clear Lake’s mistakes into points to move ahead 34-30 by the end of the third quarter. The Blues pushed their advantage to double digits early in the final period.
“We’d make a run, get to within two or three and then start turning it over again,” Reynolds said.
Clear Lake also owned a height edge but didn’t take advantage nearly enough.
“Valerie (Hutton) had a height advantage on her opponent and we posted her up only once in the first half. We were calling for that play but we weren’t running it. We weren’t very disciplined, we didn’t play our game like we’re capable of playing it.”
Should Clear Lake earn a rematch with Urban at some point of the NorCal playoffs, Reynolds said he believes the outcome will be different.
“I would love to get another shot at them,” he said.
Hutton’s 18 points paced Clear Lake but only one other Cardinal, Corin Alakszay (12 points), finished in double digits. Kiana Richardson added seven points and Camille Donald six.
Clear Lake advanced to the semifinals with wins over Redwood Christian (62-32) and Cloverdale (65-43) in the first two rounds.
