LAKE COUNTY — Alisha Jones scored four critical points down the stretch and the Lower Lake High School varsity girls basketball team scored a down-to-the-wire 56-53 victory over the Clear Lake Cardinals in North Central League I action nearly a year ago today in Lakeport.
Until the COVID-19-delayed 2020-21 sports season starts, the Lake County Record-Bee will take a look back at the local sports happenings of a year ago and the teams and athletes who were making the headlines.
Varsity girls basketball
After dropping a last-second 41-40 decision to Clear Lake 18 days earlier at Lower Lake in the first of two league meetings between the two schools, the Trojans returned the favor on the Cardinals’ own court. As a result, both teams emerged from the game with 6-5 league records.
Clear Lake had a chance to pull even in the final seconds but missed a 3-pointer on a designed play where the Cardinals’ top scorer, Rylee Mix (16 points), was used a decoy.
Lower Lake received double-digit scoring efforts from Shelby Sapeta with 16 points, Margo Cordova with 13, and Sam Hughes with 12. Clear Lake also had three players reach double digits. Besides Mix, Sydney Howe finished with 14 points and Joy Ingalls added 11.
“Fourth quarters have been good to us all season,” Lower Lake head coach Shannon Tubbs said of the 18 points scored by the Trojans in the final period to pull out the win. “It was kind of a combination of everybody, not just one person.”
Jones, despite scoring only six points in the win, logged four of them in crunch time. She also led the Trojans with 11 rebounds and five steals.
“That was pretty big for us,” Tubbs said of Jones.
So were the 14 points scored by Sapeta in the second half.
“She was kind of down on herself (at halftime) and I told her to just keep shooting,” Tubbs said. “She did a good job for us in the second half.”
“It’s fun playing them,” Clear Lake head coach Phil Psalmonds said of the Tubbs-coached Trojans. “They’re a good team.”
Psalmonds and Tubbs previously coached against each other while serving as junior varsity boys head coaches at their current schools.
“I’ve been coaching against Shannon for years,” Psalmonds said.
The two teams were never separated by much. Lower Lake led 15-12 after one quarter, Clear Lake had a 29-28 halftime advantage, and the game was tied 38-all going to the final period.
Prior to the start of play, Lower Lake junior Lynzi Milano, who has been sidelined since September as she battles cancer for the second time in her young life, was honored by Clear Lake’s players who presented her with a number of gifts and also donated all proceeds of a raffle to her recovery fund.
Tubbs said he was greatly touched by the gesture and said that Clear Lake player Ashlynn Gudmundson has made Milano’s courageous fight her senior project.
“Class act,” Tubbs said of Gudmundson, the Clear Lake team, school and its fans. “That school has done a lot for us over the years.”
Added Tubbs of players from both schools,”The kids play hard against each other when they’re on the court, but there’s bigger things in life than basketball. I can’t thank them enough.”
