KELSEYVILLE — There won’t be any conflict of interest when Kelseyville High School alum Mike Smith, the head coach of the Upper Lake varsity girls basketball team, plays his alma mater Saturday at 6 p.m. for the championship in the 48th annual Stokes Invitational Basketball Tournament at Kelseyville High School.
The 1989 Kelseyville High graduate hopes to lead the incredibly young and talented Lady Cougars to an early Christmas present when they face the Knights, who also improved to 2-0 in the round-robin girls bracket of the Stokes with a 55-32 win over the Ferndale Wildcats on Friday night.
“It’s very cool,” Smith said of playing for a tournament championship on the court where he played basketball for the Indians (before they became the Knights) 30 years ago.
In fact, Smith was a teammate of Sal Sanchez, the father of current Upper Lake player Alana Sanchez. And the teams have many other ties as well. Chyral Melville Bryant, the mom of Kelseyville’s star player, Allison Bryant, played her high school basketball at Upper Lake as did Allison’s two aunts, Shannon Melville Coxen and Jennifer Bryant Hopkins, both star players for the Cougars during the late 1980s and early 90s.
“We’ll need to do a good job against her,” Smith said of defending Bryant in Saturday’s championship showdown.
Elsie Allen felt the full wrath of Upper Lake’s swarming defense as the Cougars (9-2) pressured the Lobos into numerous turnovers, many of which became easy baskets for the Cougars.
“Maddy Young was stellar on defense,” Smith said of one of three starting freshmen in the Upper Lake lineup. “She had eight steals and a lot of them turned into nice layups for Karlee (Zimmerschied).”
Zimmerschied, a sophomore guard, led the Cougars with 18 points. Joining her in double figures were Sanchez with 14 and Heaven’Lee Loans Arrow with 12.
“Sanchez battled on the boards,” Smith said of the senior’s 10 rebounds. “She’s playing probably the best basketball of her career the last few games. I’ve been very impressed with her.”
Loans Arrow, another of the starting freshmen, gave a boost to the offense and to the defense with her five blocked shots.
“She’s tough in that middle,” Smith said.
Upper Lake led 29-14 at halftime and 46-23 through three quarters.
Looking ahead to Saturday’s championship game, the Knights will certainly be the Cougars’ toughest test of the tournament – and vice versa – and Smith said the two schools appear to be evenly matched based on their common opponents to date, such as Healdsburg in non-league action and Elsie Allen in Stokes Tournament action.
“It looks pretty even,” Smith said. “But we’ll playing them on their homecourt in their home tournament, so we need to play them tough and not play like freshmen. Don’t let one mistake turn into two or three more.”
Freshman Kat Geary-Lopez had eight points for Upper Lake.
In other Stokes action Friday:
Kelseyville 55, Ferndale 32
At Kelseyville, next stop, Stokes championship game.
M.J. Boardman led the way with 11 points and Maddy Barker added 10 more on Friday night as the Kelseyville Knights punched their ticket into the championship game of their own tournament, the Stokes Invitational, with a second straight lopsided tournament victory. They’ll play the Upper Lake Cougars (9-2) on Saturday at 6 p.m. for the title.
“As long as I see the team I see every day in practice, I’m pretty confident,” Kelseyville head coach Skyler Olsen said. “I have a lot of confidence in my girls.”
Kelseyville (3-7) overpowered the slower and shorter Wildcats during a 21-4 first quarter. While the Knights couldn’t add to that lead before halftime, they put the game away with a 20-6 third quarter.
“Sometimes they kind of slow down,” Olsen said of her team’s play during a nine-point second quarter. “But when we play like we did in the first and third quarters, we’re fun to watch and it’s cool to see them all working together. We don’t have a 20-point scorer, but we have a lot of girls contributing.”
Kelseyville’s defense limited the Wildcats to single-digit point totals in each of the first three quarters.
“The defense was pretty solid for most of the game,” Olsen said.
Boardman turned in a solid overall effort between her scoring, rebounding and defense (she led the team with five steals).
“We talked about playing at our tempo, our game and we did, especially in the first and third quarters,” Olsen said.
Ryann Taylor added eight points in the win, Paloma Ortinz contributed seven and Sam Carter had six.
Ferndale plays Elsie Allen in the third-place game Saturday at 3 p.m.
