PETALUMA — The Middletown Mustangs struggled on defense and fell 58-40 to the Casa Grande Gauchos in a non-league varsity girls basketball game on Tuesday night in Petaluma.
“We played four quarters of basketball and lost every one of them,” Middletown head coach Anthony Bazzano said of the Mustangs (1-4) being outscored in every quarter. “It’s hard to win doing that.”
The main culprit was the team’s defense.
“The defense was pretty porous tonight and I don’t have an explanation for it,” Bazzano said. “We didn’t make stops. The girls played their hearts out, but we just gave up too many points.”
Hanna Morris led the Mustangs with 16 points, Kassi Agapoff added eight and Abbey Brown had six.
Bazzano said his players need to keep their heads up despite their tough start this season.
“We can’t get down. We need to learn from these experiences and move on.”
Middletown hosts Rodriguez (1-6) out of Fairfield on Thursday.
In other non-league girls basketball action on Tuesday:
Calistoga 47, Upper Lake 25
At Calistoga, the Upper Lake Cougars looked like a team playing their fifth game in six days as they struggled against the Calistoga Wildcats.
“We were also missing two starters,” Upper Lake coach Nick Williamson said.
Cheyanne Obedoza was out with an ankle injury sustained in the Cougars’ loss to Lower Lake the night before while Alana Sanchez missed the game for family reasons.
“We played tired, made a lot of bad choices,” Williamson said. “We had an overload of turnovers and had a hard time getting going.”
Calistoga led 24-10 at halftime.
Vanessa Loans Arrow’s eight points led the Cougars. Kaila Willard and Kailee Zimmerschied added six points apiece and Molly McCabe had five.
Upper Lake is off until Tuesday when it hosts Technology of Rohnert Park.
“I’m really looking forward to getting in some practice time,” Williamson said.
Sonoma Academy 40, Clear Lake 34
At Santa Rosa, Sonoma Academy defeated Clear Lake, the Cardinals’ fifth straight loss.
No other game details were reported.
Clear Lake (2-5) plays Piedmont 6:30 p.m. on Thursday in the opening round of the 48th annual Stokes Invitational at Kelseyville.
