Boys go 1-1 in first week, girls drop two
Losing star center Jayson McMillan for most of a game wasn’t the kind of start Cloverdale High School varsity boys basketball coach Steve Bernardi had in mind for the Eagles as they opened their 2017 North Central League I campaign. Going 0-2 definitely wasn’t in the plans of the Cloverdale varsity girls and head coach Rick Berry.
Cloverdale’s boys, despite a 58-54 road loss to the Clear Lake Cardinals on Jan. 3, a game in which McMillan sustained a nose injury early in the first quarter and couldn’t return, bounced back with a 73-60 victory on Jan. 6 at home against the Kelseyville Knights.
Cloverdale’s girls didn’t lose a player to injury, but the Eagles did a pretty good job of shooting themselves in the foot down the stretch of a 48-43 overtime loss to Clear Lake on Jan. 3 in Cloverdale. Three days later the Eagles ran into the Kelseyville Knights, a team they had already lost twice to in tournament play last month. While the Eagles played much better the third time around, it still wasn’t enough in a 45-42 loss.
Both Cloverdale teams were scheduled to be back in action Tuesday, Jan. 10 against Middletown. On Friday, Jan. 13 they take on Willits – the boys hit the road while the girls are at home.
Varsity boys
With McMillan back in the lineup against the Kelseyville Knights, the Eagles started slowly but dominated in the fourth quarter to break open what had been an airtight game most of the way.
Gage Hoover went 2-for-2 from the field with a 3-pointer and 4-for-4 from the free-throw line to spark a 23-point Cloverdale quarter. Meanwhile the Cloverdale defense, anchored by McMillan in the middle, shut down a dangerous Kelseyville offense, limiting the Knights to 10 points in the final period and only two baskets, the first of which didn’t come until there was just 1:58 left in the game.
In a game that was tied 34-all at the half and 50-all through three quarters, the Eagles wasted no time taking control in the fourth quarter. Three-pointers by Luke Pope and Hoover on back-to-back Cloverdale possession gave Cloverdale a 58-52 lead, and a two-point bucket by Eli Arreola following a Kelseyville turnover made it 60-52.
The Knights cut to it 60-53 with 4:09 remaining but were never any closer. Three-pointers by Jordan Persons with 3:07 left and by McMillan, who buried a shot from the top of the key with 2:04 remaining, put the game out of reach at 68-54.
While happy with the play of his defense in the second half and especially the fourth quarter, Bernardi said the Eagles need to tighten up things if they want to make a run at winning a third straight league championship.
“We’re not playing Cloverdale-type defense right now,” Bernardi said. “We’ve got to play better defense.”
As an example, Bernardi said the 9-0 lead the Eagles spotted the Knights at game’s start was inexcusable. The Knights’ first three shots were 3-point attempts and they made them all.
“I give them credit for making them, but we’ve got to get out and cover those shooters,” Bernardi said. “They were wide open.”
Hoover finished with 23 points, McMillan added 18, Persons had 15 and Pope 9.
In the 58-54 loss to Clear Lake three days earlier, McMillan caught an elbow to the nose while fighting for a rebound early in the first quarter and never returned to the floor, such was the force of the blow.
Even without their team leader, the Eagles stayed right with the Cardinals and had their opportunities to come out of the game with a victory.
“We still should have won,” Bernardi said. “We missed too many easy shots inside. We got the shots we wanted to get, we just didn’t make them.”
The Cardinals couldn’t shake the Eagles even without McMillan. Clear Lake carried a 44-43 lead into the fourth quarter.
“We played really hard, tried to compete,” Bernardi said.
Pope and Hoover carried the scoring load for the Eagles with 15 and 12 points, respectively. McMillan had four points despite playing only three possessions.
Varsity girls
The third time wasn’t the charm for the Eagles in their 45-42 loss to Kelseyville, but it was a big improvement after earlier 69-37 and 52-37 losses to the Knights last month in non-league action.
The teams will definitely meet a fourth time when Kelseyville visits Cloverdale on Jan. 31 and could even play again in the league’s postseason tournament in February.
“Each one is getting a little closer,” Cloverdale assistant coach Maribeth Kelly said of the Cloverdale-Kelseyville series. “We made some defensive adjustments and we’re trying to be strong with the ball.”
Twenty-five turnovers did not help the Eagles’ cause, however. “Way too many,” Kelly said.
Allowing 18 points in the fourth quarter proved to be the Eagles’ undoing as the Knights (2-0 league, 13-1 overall) were able to hold off Cloverdale (0-2, 9-5), which scored 18 points of its own in the final period.
Tehya Bird led the Eagles with 17 points while Kayli Persons and Camryn Figueroa added eight apiece and Paloma Santos had six.
In their 48-43 overtime loss to Clear Lake on Jan. 3, the Eagles appeared on their way to a win with a six-point lead and only 55.3 seconds remaining, but Cloverdale suddenly went ice-cold from both the field and free-throw line while Clear Lake’s Valerie Hutton hit just about every shot she took down the stretch.
The Eagles had two one-and-one free-throw opportunities in the final seconds of regulation but missed the front end on both, the last time with 2.3 seconds left and the score knotted at 41.
In the overtime period that followed, Clear Lake scored on a Hutton three-point play and a Camille Donald 3-pointer to go up 47-41 and the Cardinals never looked back.
A handful of the mistakes that plagued the Eagles down the stretch, both in the fourth quarter and overtime, are a direct result of the team’s relative youth, according to Kelly.
“We have seniors but it realistically is a young team and there is a learning curve,” Kelly said. “Losing to Clear Lake really hurts because they are Division V team (like Cloverdale).”
Kelly also praised the play of the Cardinals in pulling out a dramatic win on Cloverdale’s home floor.
“They’ve got a good coach and He’s establishing a program there,” Kelly said of Clear Lake’s Kory Reynolds.
Bird led the Eagles with 19 points while Figueroa finished with 11 and Jaedyn Jenkins had seven. For Clear Lake, Hutton scored 10 of her 12 points in the fourth quarter and overtime.
