WILLITS — Consider it an early Christmas present from Santa for a team that has been very, very good in the early going of the 2018-19 high school basketball season.
The Lower Lake Trojans beat the Willits Wolverines 63-41 on Friday night in Willits to officially open the race for the 2019 North Central League I varsity boys championship. While the Wolverines (0-1 league, 3-7 overall) don’t figure to be a factor in that race, the young Trojans (1-0, 9-4) just might be.
“They get along together on the court, they get good grades,” Lower Lake head coach Tim Biasotti said of his players. “They check all the boxes.”
Makhi Johnson, a 6-foot-2 freshman who can jump out of the gym, according to Biasotti, scored a team-high 13 points. Sophomore Donald Vaughn and senior Darian James added 10 points apiece to lead a balanced Lower Lake attack that also featured eight points from Aries Brooke, seven from Elijah Hernandez and six apiece from Vann Wilkins and Izzac Carver.
“He (Johnson) had a steal and a fastbreak and almost dunked it on a Willits kid who caught up from behind (and fouled him),” Biasotti said. “He didn’t get the dunk, but he got to the free-throw line. You don’t see that from a freshman very often, especially in our league.”
Three of Lower Lake’s starters — Johnson, Vaughn and Wilkins — are first-year varsity players.
“That’s a good problem to have,” Biasotti said before correcting himself. “That’s not a problem at all.”
While it’s far too early to make any bold predictions about where the Trojans will end up in the league standings, this much is certain; they’re only one win shy of matching the team’s 10 total victories of last season … and 2019 isn’t even here yet.
“We didn’t get out and play like I would have wanted them,” Biasotti said. “It was a four-game set and there was a lot of sitting around before the game. Our energy wasn’t at the level I wanted.”
Lower Lake led 18-9 after one quarter quarter and gradually pushed that to 48-32 through three quarters.
Hernandez pulled down a team best 11 rebounds while Wilkins and Clark led the team with five steals apiece.
The Trojans are off until Jan. 8 when they host the Clear Lake Cardinals in the first game of a home back-to-back. They play St. Helena on Jan. 9.
Willits won the junior varsity game (score not reported).
In other boys basketball action Friday:
Middletown 62, Credo 28
At Middletown, Andreas Cervantes’ 16 points and nine rebounds and a double-double of 13 points and 10 rebounds by Jimmy Rockwell powered the Middletown Mustangs to a non-league victory over the Credo Gryphon.
It was the final preseason tuneup for the Mustangs (7-4), who open their league schedule Jan. 2 at home against Cloverdale.
“We were using different combination out there,” Middletown head coach G.J. Rockwell said. “We were moving the ball a little better, our defense was a little sharper. We’re developing our basketball lungs and legs.”
Middletown had a 20-8 lead after one quarter and a 38-14 halftime advantage.
“We had another good game on the boards,” Rockwell said.
The up-and-down game didn’t feature much in the way of outside shooting. The Mustangs’ lone 3-pointer belonged to Rockwell.
Will Chastain contributed 10 points in the victory, Noah Brown added seven and Sammy Cervantes had six.
There was no JV game.
