KELSEYVILLE — Strong play down the stretch from Andres Cervantes and Will Chastain carried the Middletown Mustangs to a 60-50 over the Elsie Allen Lobos of Santa Rosa in first-round action Thursday at the 48th annual Stokes Invitational Basketball Tournament in Kelseyville.
Cervantes scored 10 of his team-leading 22 points in the fourth quarter when the Mustangs (6-3) outscored the Lobos 22-9. Chastain added another six points in the quarter as Middletown snapped a two-game losing streak.
“We had a really good fourth quarter,” Middletown head coach G.J. Rockwell said. “Chastain had six of his eight points in the fourth quarter and they were all off of steals.”
Sammy Cervantes did his part in the win as well, scoring 11 of his 15 in the first half.
“He kept us in the game in the first half,” Rockwell said. “Sammy played exceptionally good defense and a lot of his points were off steals in the open court.”
The game was knotted at 17 through one quarter. Middletown had a 26-22 lead at the half, but Elsie Allen (1-8) surged ahead with a 19-12 third quarter.
“We weren’t ever really able to pull away,” Rockwell said. “One time we got up by nine and they hit two 3s in a row.”
Elsie Allen finished the game with 13 3-pointer field goals, five of which came in the opening period.
“They were really chucking them up,” Rockwell said.
Middletown faces a familiar foe, the Cloverdale Eagles, in the winner’s semifinal round Friday at 3 p.m. Cloverdale beat Upper Lake 70-31 in another first-round game Thursday.
“We need to just play hard and not let them have second shots and not let them get the ball to their post (center Josh Lemley),” Rockwell said.
The Middletown-Cloverdale winner advances to Saturday’s championship game at 7:30 p.m. The loser plays for third place at 4:30 p.m.
In other late Stokes boys action Thursday:
Ukiah 63, Ferndale 44
At Kelseyville, Quincy Hayes scored 17 points to lead the Ukiah Wildcats past the Ferndale Wildcats in a first-round game. Ukiah draws Kelseyville on Friday in the winner’s semifinals at 6 p.m. while Ferndale plays Technology in the consolation semifinals at 1:30 p.m.
Kelseyville 61, Technology 19
At Kelseyville, the Technology Titans hit a 3-point shot from the half-court stripe as time expired in the first half against Kelseyville, a shot that was memorable in more ways than one during first-round Stokes action against the host Knights.
Technology (0-6) hadn’t scored until then and was just a split second away from trailing 35-0 when the long 3-pointer found its mark as the buzzer sounded.
“The whole gym cheered,” Kelseyville head coach Jeremy Linnell said.
Kelseyville’s reserves played the entire second half and 12 of the Knights’ 14 players eventually reached the scoring column.
“They were a really young team with freshmen, sophomores and a few juniors,” Linnell said of the Titans.”We were physical ly bigger than them and we executed in the first half. My reserves played the whole second half.”
Kelseyville led 16-0 after one quarter.
Joey Mendonca’s 18 points led the Knights. Rafael Perez added six points on a pair of 3-pointers.
Kelseyville (4-4) draws Ukiah on Friday in the winner’s semifinal at 6 p.m. The winner advances to Saturday’s championship game and will face the winner of Friday’s other semifinal between Cloverdale and Middletown.
“That will be a real solid test,” Linnell said of the Ukiah game.
Cayden Thompson’s seven points led the Titans.
