UPPER LAKE — So far, so good for the Upper Lake Cougars and first-year head coach Tony Arroyo, 58-34 winners over the Anderson Valley Panthers on Tuesday night in Upper Lake.
The non-league win gives Upper Lake’s varsity boys a 8-1 start to their 2019-20 season and a bit of momentum as they wade into the deeper water that is the 48th annual Stokes Invitational beginning Thursday in Kelseyville. The Cougars draw a tough first-round assignment in the Cloverdale Eagles (5-2), certainly one of the favorites if not the favorite going into the three-day tournament. The rest of the field includes Middletown, Elsie Allen (Santa Rosa), Ukiah, Ferndale, Technology and the host Kelseyville Knights.
“They’ve got size on us,” Arroyo said with an eye toward the Cloverdale Eagles, “but if we can box out and take care of the rebounds, we’ll be competitive. We do have a lot of speed. We also need to stay out of foul trouble, which we didn’t do tonight. We can’t do that against a team like Cloverdale.”
Anderson Valley (0-9) posed no threat to the Cougars, so much so that Arroyo, who had 10 players in uniform, started his five reserves instead of his five starters. He played his second unit until the 2:36 mark of the first quarter and they left the floor with a 6-0 lead.
“I wanted to give them some minutes and give them the opportunity to see what they could do out there,” Arroyo said. “They were my starting five on last year’s JV team.”
Arroyo said he saw some things he liked and some things he didn’t.
“They were a little tentative on the offensive end, but they controlled the boards pretty well,” Arroyo said. “We were also moving the ball a little slow.”
That changed once starters Hank Nevarez, Louis Avalos, Benat Love, Jay Arraoyo and Dalton Slater subbed in late in the opening period. By the time the second unit of Russell Gordon, Jonathon Thiessen, Diego Velasco, Brian Jimenez and Rocco Bassignani re-enetered the game with 2:48 remaining in the first half, the Cougars had a 22-7 lead en route to a 25-9 halftime advantage.
“The intensity came with the first group,” Arroyo said.
Upper Lake’s reserves played the first half of the third quarter and added to the lead, which was 30-12 before the starters rotated back in. Anderson Valley was never closer than 17 points the rest of the way. The Cougars pushed their lead into the mid-20s in the fourth quarter and it was their reserves doing most of the damage — Bassignani scored eight of his 11 points in the period, joining starters Love (11 points) and Slater (10 points) in double figures. Avalos added eight points.
Junior varsity
Upper Lake also won the junior varsity game 55-29 as Sammy Avalos and Kai Young led the way with 21 and 14 points, respectively. Blaine Rhodes added another eight and Pedro Alvarado had seven.
“They played a solid game and I was able to get everyone in and work on some things,” Upper Lake coach Nick Williamson said. “We got everyone involved. It was a good game.”
