UPPER LAKE — They’re on the road again.
The Upper Lake Cougars don’t have much time to savor their 52-47 victory over the Portola Tigers in first-round NorCal girls basketball playoff action Wednesday night in Upper Lake as they are just hours away from playing Bret Harte (22-7) in the quarterfinals, which tip off Thursday evening at 6 p.m. inside the Bret Harte High School gym in Angels Camp.
Maddy Young scored 13 points while teammates Taylar Minnis (11 points) and Kat Lopez-Geary (10 points) also reached double digits as Upper Lake (29-2) improved to 4-0 at home in the playoffs with its 29th victory of the season, which matches the 29 games won by the 1993-94 Upper Lake girls team. A victory against Bret Harte would break both school and county records for most single-season wins.
While Upper Lake’s offense didn’t fully wake up until the second half against Portola, the Cougars’ rebounding and defense were ever present, causing the Tigers more than a few problems along the way. Upper Lake also won the 3-point battle with Portola, which is something the Cougars almost never do.
Both Lopez-Geary and Jayme Zimmerschied, who just missed double digits herself with nine points, hit two 3-pointers each while Young had another.
With the Tigers going out of their way on defense to deny the ball down low to center Minnis, the Cougars were in a position where they needed other players to pick up the scoring slack. They did.
“The other girls knew they needed to step up and score,” said Upper Lake co-head coach Annie Pivniska-Petrie, the starting point guard on the 1993-94 Upper Lake team that went 29-1. “We also rebounded very well.”
While Upper Lake’s backcourt pressure was much more effective in the second half, Pivniska-Petrie said she was happy to see the Cougars’ defense causing havoc on both ends of the court. Upper Lake blocked many Portola shots in the paint and deflected a high number of Tigers passes intended for teammates in the low post. Add in a bunch of steals and the Cougars’ great scrambling ability — they were able to run down more loose balls than the Tigers — and you have a pretty good recipe for success.
And it’s not that Portola (20-12) didn’t make it interesting, even after falling behind by 17 points with 6:52 left when Young’s three-point made it 47-30. Young stole the ball, scored on a layup and was fouled before adding the free throw.
The Tigers battled back with some good defense of their own and three 3-pointers, two of them by sophomore guard Adrina James (17 points), to close the gap to 51-45 with 17 seconds remaining. Nya Marcks hit the front end of a one-and-one with 15.2 seconds remaining for Upper Lake’s final point, and senior center Emily Hughes (13 points) sank a basket in the final seconds for Portola.
“They’re a good little team,” Pivniska-Petrie said of Portola.
The NorCal victory is the first for the Cougars since the 1993-94 club reached the semifinals in what was an eight-team field nearly 30 years ago. That NorCal field has since expanded to 16 teams and the Cougars are just one of eight remaining after their first-round win.
Pivniska-Petrie said the Cougars won’t look any farther ahead than Thursday’s quarterfinal matchup with Bret Harte, the Sac-San Joaquin Section runner-up and a 58-38 winner over Tulare Union on Tuesday night in first-round game.
“Just one game at a time,” Pivniska-Petrie said.
Both Pivniska-Petrie and co-head coach Raelene Cromwell said the Cougars were not satisfied with their effort Saturday in a 63-33 loss to a very good University team in the championship game of the North Coast Section Division 5 playoffs.
“They thought they could have played better even though we were outmatched against a good team like that,” Pivniska-Petrie said. “They concentrated on what they needed to work on between the section game and tonight.”
Cromwell said Lopez-Geary, one of the team’s four starting seniors, was dialed in against the Tigers.
“She came out hot and really focused,” Cromwell said.
After a 22-18 first half favoring the Cougars, one that featured four lead changes and never more than a three-point separation between the teams until the final minute of the second quarter, Upper Lake began to pull away during a 20-point third quarter. Lopez-Geary set the tone from the outset, hitting a wide open 3-pointer from the wing to make it 25-18. She did it again at the 4:08 mark of the quarter to give the Cougars a 31-23 cushion.
Young then sank two free throws and Ashlyn Rhodes added a layup following a Portola turnover to push the Cougars’ lead to 35-23. Hughes scored down low to get two of those points back for the Tigers, but Minnis scored after pulling down an offensive rebound and Young’s step-back 3-pointer from the top of the key made it 40-25 at the 1:58 mark.
Credit Portola for never giving up because the Tigers battled hard down the stretch, led by Hughes down low and James from the 3-point stripe.
Portola also finished with three players in double figures. Besides James and Hunges, Maggie Klemesrud, a senior guard, finished with 10 points.
The Tigers led 8-6 after one quarter as neither team had much success shooting the ball either from the paint or behind the 3-point arc.
Team notes: Portola beat Upper Lake 77-58 in a first-round NorCal game at Portola three years ago to end the Cougars’ season … Upper Lake’s opponent in the quarterfinals, Bret Harte, is the No. 3 NorCal seed to the Cougars’ No. 6 … In order to get another home game, Upper Lake needs to beat Bret Harte and hope that No. 7 seed Valley Christian knocks off No. 2 Santa Cruz on Thursday night. If that happens, the Cougars would be back at home Saturday to play Valley Christian in the semifinals … Upper Lake’s game Thursday against Bret Harte is the team’s sixth postseason contest, matching the six playoff games played by the 1990-91 and 1992-93 Upper Lake girls squads (back when both the sectional and NorCal playoffs were only three games long instead of four).
