LAKEPORT — It might be pouring outside, but the Clear Lake Cardinals see nothing but blue sky on the horizon after holding off McClymonds of Oakland 61-56 in their NorCal Region Division V playoff opener on Tuesday night in Lakeport.
In the process of improving to a school-record-best 27-3 on the season, the Cardinals guaranteed themselves a quarterfinal-round home game tonight at 7 p.m. against Lincoln High School of San Francisco, a 78-40 winner over Durham in another first-round game Tuesday. Lincoln (22-10) is the San Francisco Section runner-up.
Packed into a zone defense throughout the game and daring the Warriors (10-18) to shoot the ball from the outside, the Cardinals led by as many as nine points three times in the third quarter only to watch a quick and athletic McClymonds team claw its way back into the game each and every time.
“They did not shoot the ball particularly well in the game film we saw last week,” Clear Lake head coach Scott De Leon said. “We stuck to our plan, packed it in on defense, boxed out and got rebounds. We were going to make them beat us from the outside and they couldn’t do that.”
The Cardinals were rebounding machines while collecting the first NorCal win in the school’s storied boys basketball history. Both Jaron Mertle (16 points) and Darius Ford (seven points) finished with 15 rebounds apiece, and Mertle also had five blocks, two of them coming late in the game as the Warriors desperately tried to rally one last time.
That helped take some of the sting out of 16-turnover night for the Cardinals, who also didn’t shoot particularly well from either the free-throw line (10-for-21) or from beyond the 3-point arc (just one trey, that in the first quarter).
“We picked a heck of a night not to shoot well on our 3-pointers and free throws,” De Leon said.
McClymonds led briefly on two occasions — 2-0 to open the game and 18-17 with 3:56 left in the first half. The Cardinals were in front for the final two and a half quarters, but that’s not to say it was an uneventful final two and a half quarters because it was anything but easy.
When Tj Marcks, who was the big story of the game for the Cardinals, converted a three-point play to open the fourth quarter and give Clear Lake a 47-37 lead — its biggest of the game — the Warriors scrambled back and eventually pulled to within a point — 51-50 — on a Dylan Sun basket with 3:17 remaining. But that’s as close as McClymonds, the No. 14 seed in the 16-team Division V field, would get to an upset.
The Cardinals calmly and coolly responded with a 6-0 run ignited by a Marcks basket down low. Ford scored inside with a Mertle assist to make it 53-50, and Mertle put back a Ford miss seconds later to boost Clear Lake’s lead to 57-50 with 2:19 left.
Down the stretch, the Warriors could get no closer than five points as Clear Lake hit a handful of free throws to keep a safe distance from the Oakland team on the scoreboard.
On a night when several Clear Lake players struggled on offense, the one constant was Marcks, a 6-foot-3, 330-pound force at center who came off De Leon’s bench to tally a team-best 17 points.
“They had no answer for him,” De Leon said. “Defensively his rebounding and his play on their big guy was really good.”
Offensively, Marcks carried the scoring load in the first half with 12 points. He added another five in the fourth quarter to help Clear Lake seal the win.
“He was our spark,” De Leon said.
Another spark was point guard Rodrigo Lupercio (12 points), who scored Clear Lake’s first six points of the second half. One of his baskets came on an impressive one-handed runner in the lane, another on a spinning underhanded shot that put a real thrill into the crowd. Josh Damiata (seven points) scored on each of the Cardinals’ next two possessions to make it a 38-29 game.
Even Mertle, who had a handful of shots rim in and out, not the least of which was a slam dunk attempt in the second quarter on which Ford also missed the easy putback, began to warm up a bit in the fourth quarter and scored eight crucial points in the final minutes.
“After they closed to one, our fans got quiet, but we battled back,” De Leon said.
A near-capacity crowd cranked the volume in the gym moments later when Clear Lake’s 6-0 run sealed the victory, adding to the school’s single-season record number of wins for a boys team. If the Cardinals prevail on Thursday night against No. 6 seed Lincoln, they’ll equal the 28 victories by Clear Lake’s 1988-89 girls team, which reached the NorCal championship game.
“It hasn’t really sunk in,” De Leon said when asked about the magnitude of his team’s accomplishments through its first 30 games.
And the Cardinals could play as many as four more if they go the distance, which is all the way to the Division V state championship game.
De Leon won’t look that far ahead. He’s only concerned with beating Lincoln on Thursday in what could be Clear Lake’s final home game of the season.
“It gets exponentially tougher from here,” De Leon said. “Tonight we did what we had to do to win this game. We have to play much better on Thursday.”
As always, De Leon praised the Clear Lake fans for packing the gym despite the atmospheric river of rainfall that has pounded the county since Monday.
“I really appreciate it and I can’t thank them enough,” he said.
Sun, Jahaan Harris and Jalen Holmes led McClymonds, the Oakland Section runner-up, with 12 points apiece. Deylen Christopher added eight more.
Clear Lake notes: Bench players accounted for 21 of the Cardinals’ 61 points. Along with Marcks’ 17 points, reserves Tyler Cerini and Travis Howe scored two points apiece and gave Clear Lake some productive minutes in the second quarter while De Leon rested starters, including Mertle … “They gave me some good minutes. They contributed in that first half,” De Leon said … No. 2 seed Dinuba (Tulare County) beat No. 15 seed Sacramento Adventist 74-60 in first-round action and will host No. 7 Argonaut in the quarterfinals … If Clear Lake wins Thursday and Dinuba loses, the Cardinals would host Argonaut in the semifinals on Saturday … No. 1 seed Mt. Shasta improved to 30-1 with a 89-57 victory over No. 16 Ripon Christian … Clear Lake has won 18 of its last 19.
