KELSEYVILLE — Two varsity girls basketball teams looking to win nothing less than a championship squared off in the first game of the 49th annual Stokes Tournament on Thursday afternoon at Kelseyville High School. It turned out to be no contest.
Paige Astley set the tone early and her teammates took it from there as the Middletown Mustangs mounted a 14-0 run in the third quarter to pull away from and beat the Upper Lake Cougars 62-44.
The two teams were never separated by more than six points until early in the third quarter. After Upper Lake’s Heaven’Lee Loans Arrow sank a 3-pointer to cut Middletown’s lead to 31-29, the Mustangs (6-3) went on their big run, which included four points apiece from freshman Mia Hoogendoorn (14 points) and sophomore Amanda Hart (13 points) as well as 3-pointers by Astley (18 points) and Skylar Williams (eight points).
Upper Lake (8-2) was never closer than 11 points the rest of the way and trailed by as many as 19 midway through the fourth quarter.
“We’re playing really good right now,” said Middletown head coach Andy Brown, who called it his team’s best effort of the season/ “We’ve got a pretty well-balanced attack.”
Brown said scheduling up in the preseason has been a real plus for the Mustangs, who faced a handful of large schools — West County, Casa Grande and Piner among them — before reaching the Stokes Tournament.
“That’s one reason we stick to that hard preseason schedule,” Brown said. “We’re prepared for this type of game.”
Upper Lake, the 2019 Stokes champion, has now lost twice to North Central League I teams — Middletown and Willits.
“We want to see better competition and part of that is stepping up, not shrinking from it,” Upper Lake head coach Mike Smith said. “We need to find that confidence and we’re lacking in that now.”
Astley scored 10 of Middletown’s 13 points during an 13-11 first quarter, hitting two of her four 3-pointers in the opening period.
The Mustangs and Cougars exchanged baskets and free throws throughout the second quarter as Middletown entered halftime up 24-23.
“We were ready to grind it out with them if that’s what it took,” Brown said. “Fortunately we didn’t have to.”
After Upper Lake pulled even at 26 on a Loans Arrow free throw early in the third quarter, Astley sank a 3-pointer, her first points since the first quarter, to put Middletown ahead to stay at 29-26. Hart added a pair of free throws to make it 31-26, then Loans Arrow’s 3-pointer sliced the Middletown lead to two. It turned out to be the Cougars’ last hurrah.
“On defense we really melted down,” Smith said of the 14-0 Middletown run that was to follow. “We mentally lost our focus on defense. We let one mistake turn into three mistakes in a row and we were down by 10. Middletown is really good and if you don’t regroup quickly, they’ll jump on you.”
Added Smith of the Mustangs, “They spread us out, we started standing up (on defense), and they went right around us.”
Brown said Upper Lake’s man-to-man defense created “isolation situations” that greatly benefited the Mustangs, and they made the most of them.
“We turned some of their turnovers into quick points (during the run),” Brown said.
And when the Cougars tried to press, Brown said the Mustangs broke it easily.
“We didn’t have any trouble with it,” Brown said.
Having three players — Astley, Hoogendoorn and Hart — in double figures and nearly a fourth in Williams prevented Upper Lake’s defense from singling out any one Middletown player.
The Mustangs also stayed hot from beyond the 3-point arc, hitting six treys to Upper Lake two.
Loans Arrow led the Cougars with 13 points, Taylar Minnis added 10 and Zoey Petrie had eight.
Upper Lake plays Point Arena in a second-round game Friday at 1:30 p.m. while Middletown plays Ferndale at 7:30 p.m.
The Stokes Tournament runs through Saturday at the Kelseyville High gym.
In other first-round girls action Thursday in Kelseyville:
Lower Lake 71, Point Arena 8
Sophomore guard Tiahna Tubbs drained six 3-pointers and finished with 28 points overall, 21 of those in the first half, as the Lower Lake Trojans (2-6) hammered the Point Arena Pirates.
Lower Lake (2-6) has won two in a row after an 0-6 start to its season.
“As a group I thought we played pretty well,” Lower Lake head coach Shannon Tubbs said. “Offensively it’s nice to have a night when we can work on some things,” Tubbs added.
It’s also nice to watch your daughter hit shot after shot after shot, which is exactly what Tiahha Tubbs did in the first half against a Point Arena team that went scoreless in the second and fourth quarters.
“She’s had a tough start to her season,” Tubbs said. “I was happy for her.”
While the Trojans still have plenty of things to improve on, according to Tubbs, he said they picked up their play in certainly areas, including on the boards.
“I thought we rebounded very well,” he said. “The girls fought hard.”
Margarita Cordova and Terilyn Jo Jermany finished with 13 points apiece and Rebecca Theodorou had eight points to go along with eight rebounds.
Lower Lake plays Kelseyville in a second-round game Friday at 4:30 p.m.
Ferndale 62, Kelseyville 26
The Ferndale Wildcats dominated down low and turned numerous Kelseyville turnovers into easy baskets while pounding the tournament-host Knights.
Kyla Albee, a 5-foot-9 junior point guard who is capable of scoring from anywhere on the floor, led the Wildcats with 21 points while sophomore guard Haidyn Fulton added 17 points.
Ferndale used both its height advantage and some crisp ball movement to punch holes in Kelseyville’s zone defense. After a 8-5 first quarter, the Wildcats turned up the level of their play at both ends of the floor. Their transition offense accounted for many layups, especially in the second half, as Kelseyville’s defense was slow in getting back.
A 10-0 run in the second quarter put Ferndale up 20-12 en route to a 26-14 halftime lead. The Wildcats’ 11-0 run to start the second half made it 37-14.
Kelseyville tried without much success to get the ball down low to senior center Larue Furlani as Ferndale’s defense did a great job denying her the ball. Furlani had just three points through the first three quarters. She finished with a team-high seven as did teammate Emily Sandoval. Lilly Wiser added six.
Kelseyville draws Lower Lake in a second-round game Friday at 4:30 p.m. Ferndale and Middletown knock heads at 7:30 p.m.
