MIDDLETOWN — When you play great defense, all things are possible. The Middletown Mustangs clamped down hard on the Fort Bragg Timberwolves on Wednesday night during a 34-31 North Central League I varsity girls basketball victory in Middletown.
“You should win games when you hold a team to 31 points,” Middletown head coach Anthony Bazzano. “We didn’t play a very good game of basketball on the offensive end of the floor, but we made the plays when we needed to.”
Still looking for her first point entering the fourth quarter, Hanna Morris scored all six of her points down the stretch, including a five-point spree in the final two minutes to snap a 29-all tie. She came out from down low and buried a wide-open 3-pointer to give Middletown (9-2 league, 15-8 overall) a 32-29 lead. About a minute later she scored down low on an inbounds play to make it 34-29.
“She’s actually got a good shot from the perimeter,” Bazzano said of Morris, who forms part of the Mustangs’ front court. “Their center didn’t follow her outside and she put a beautiful stroke on the ball and hit nothing but net.”
The Mustangs led 17-10 at halftime and had as much as a 13-point lead early in the third quarter before the Timberwolves battled back to 25-22 by quarter’s end.
“That’s a gritty little team,” Bazzano said of Fort Bragg (4-7). “Tim Anderson’s system is starting to take hold. They’ve got their core back next year and they’re going to be a handful.”
Emily Santiago and Abbey Brown scored seven points apiece to lead the Mustangs, who are on the road Friday to play Lower Lake.
In the junior varsity game, Middletown improved to 11-0 in league play and 20-3 overall with a 51-7 victory over Fort Bragg. Brooklyn Huffman led the Mustangs with 17 points, Bella Dubois added nine and Emily Young had eight.
Middletown led 28-3 at halftime and didn’t allow more than two points in any quarter.
In other girls basketball action Wednesday:
Kelseyville 68, St. Helena 24
At Kelseyville, the Kelseyville Knights overpowered the St. Helena Saints behind 22 points and 15 rebounds from Grace Davidson and 11 points off the bench from M.J. Boardman, who buried three 3-pointers.
Kelseyville (7-4, 14-8) led 20-6 after one quarter and 43-12 at halftime.
“We played a good first half, the girls played really well,” Kelseyville head coach Jim Hale said. “We pulled the press off in the second quarter and ran offensive sets the rest of the game. We were running things just to get some work in.”
Freshman Kaleigh Davis joined Davidson and Boardman in double figures with 12 points.
“Any time you get three girls in double digits that’s good,” Hale said.
Davidson also had five assists for the Knights while Paloma Ortiz added a team-best six assists to go along with her six points.
Hale said Boardman’s spark off the bench was a huge plus.
“She comes in and starts knocking down shots,” Hale said. “She brings energy off the bench.”
The Knights are home Friday against Fort Bragg.
In the JV game, Larue Furlani scored 21 points, one of four Kelseyville players to reach double digits, as the Knights routed St. Helena 75-25.
Megan Holland had 12 points in the win while Skye Mateer and Emily Sandoval each had 10.
Clear Lake 46, Willits 32
At Lakeport, while all the suspense ran out of Clear Lake’s season long ago, that doesn’t mean the rebuilding Cardinals have nothing left to root for in the final weeks of the 2018-19 campaign. For starters, three-year veteran Kortnie Reynolds is trying to become the 50th player in Lake County history to reach 1,000 career points.
Reynolds, a senior, scored 20 in the Cardinals’ win against the Willits Wolverines, which brings her career total to 958. Clear Lake (4-7, 8-16) has three more league games remaining.
“We got off to a good start even though they tried to box-and-one her,” said Clear Lake head coach and Kortnie’s dad, Kory Reynolds. “We’ve been expecting teams to do that, but we have a play for it and it worked really well. We were able to get Daijanae open.”
Daijanae Landers took advantage of all the attention the Willits defense was paying to her teammate and went off for 15 points of her own.
“Daijanae had a great game at both ends of the court,” Reynolds said.
The box-and-one had even less success against the player it was intended to stop.
“It really didn’t slow Kortnie down either,” said Reynolds, who knows all about chasing 1,000 points. When he was a senior at Clear Lake in the mid-1980s, he missing reaching that milestone by 11 points.
Of Clear Lake’s six 3-pointers against Willits, Reynolds had four of them.
Clear Lake’s final three games are against winless St. Helena (Friday at home), undefeated Cloverdale (Tuesday in Cloverdale), and Middletown (Feb. 7 in Lakeport).
In the JV game, Willits handed Clear Lake only its second league loss, 39-31. The Cardinals (9-2) were led by Rylee Mix’s 19 points. After Mix, Clear Lake’s scoring fell off to five points by Hailee Bussard.
Willits outscored Clear Lake 16-8 in the fourth quarter to break a 23-all tie entering the period.
Clear Lake coach Larry Richardson said a number of factors worked against the Cardinals, including the absence of Zoey Pepper, who missed the game with an injury.
“We missed her rebounding,” Richardson said.
A season-high number of turnovers also hurt Clear Lake in its attempt to remain a game behind league-leading Middletown (11-0) in the NCL I standings.
“Turnovers killed us,” Richards said. “We made more tonight than we’ve made all season. It might have been 10 a quarter.”
And the Wolverines certainly had plenty to do with Clear Lake’s loss at home.
“They played together and were all over the place,” Richardson said. “They put a big ‘ol wrench in our well-oiled machine tonight.”
Cloverdale 71, Lower Lake 41
At Cloverdale, undefeated league leader Cloverdale (11-0) cooled off the Lower Lake Trojans, snapping their four-game winning streak.
Lower Lake (6-5, 8-15) expended a great deal of energy on defense slowing down Cloverdale’s Tehya Bird (14 points), but that only opened up other avenues of offense for the Eagles, according to Lower Lake head coach Dave Milano.
“When you play a team like Cloverdale you almost have to pick your poison,” Milano said. “Our goal was to keep Tehya from scoring 40 points, but they’ve got shooters all over the floor and they really shot the ball well tonight.”
Cloverdale led 17-9 after one quarter and 32-21 at halftime. The Eagles put it away with a 19-6 third quarter.
“We felt like we played pretty well,” Milano said. “We matched their energy, but we can’t match their talent. They just made a lot of shots we didn’t.”
Lynzi Milano’s 13 points led the Trojans while Anahi Robles added 11 and Marnae Johnson nine.
In the JV game, Cloverdale won 39-27. Kayla Doud’s 10 points paced Lower Lake.
