Middletown boys beat Saints 58-47 to claim share of North Central League I lead
By Brian Sumpter
Lake County Sports on Facebook
MIDDLETOWN >> The Middletown Mustangs pulled a page out of their Sesame Street playbook on Friday night while beating the St. Helena Saints in a North Central League I varsity boys basketball game brought to you by the number 3.
Middletown’s 58-47 win over St. Helena, the third meeting this season between the two teams but the Mustangs’ first win, leaves the league race exactly where it was a few weeks ago, in a three-way tie, but this time with just one week left in the regular season. Middletown, Kelseyville and St. Helena are all 10-2 with two games remaining, and they don’t play each other next week. Middletown closes with Upper Lake (4-8) and Clear Lake (6-6), Kelseyville has Cloverdale (4-8) and Fort Bragg (4-8), and St. Helena finishes with Fort Bragg and Upper Lake (4-8).
While the Saints erased as much as an 11-point deficit at one point to take a 40-37 lead at the end of the third quarter, the final period belonged to number 3, better known to Middletown head Jake Diehl and Mustangs fans as junior forward Jon Hawkins.
Hawkins owned the fourth quarter, and the Mustangs simply let him do his thing without reservation. He scored 11 of Middletown’s 21 fourth-quarter points, including a three-point play with 4:06 remaining that put the Mustangs up 46-42. After a St. Helena turnover, Hawkins scored again down low, this time with 3:30 remaining, and after St. Helena missed a couple of shots, sophomore Cody Perez, called up to the varsity squad for the Saints, buried a big-time 3-pointer with 2:40 left, making it 51-42.
“That was a huge shot,” Diehl said.
And if the Saints hadn’t had enough of the No. 3 by then, Hawkins’ off-balanced shot with just more than a minute to play pretty much wrapped it up. He added two free throws, the final points of the game, to close out a 30-point night, both season and career bests.
“Jon is such a team player, he cares so much about the team,” Diehl said. “I told him, ‘If you get it (the ball) and think you can beat them, then go.’”
While Diehl said it’s unusual for him to let any one player freelance it like that, he said Hawkins was in such a zone that he let him take the Mustangs on his back down the stretch. And Hawkins’ teammates, recognizing he was dealing with a hot hand against the Saints, obliged by getting him the ball as often as possible.
Hawkins also had 11 points, including a three-point play in the first quarter, and he added still another three-play in the second quarter, driving inside for the basket, drawing the foul and making the free throw to give the Mustangs 29-19 lead.
After losing two tight games to St. Helena earlier this season, including a 62-60 league loss at St. Helena on Jan. 14, Diehl said it “felt great” to finally get over the hump against the Saints, which was a must if Middletown wanted to keep its title hopes alive.
“We knew we could do it after the first two times we played,” Diehl said. “We had a lot of energy tonight.”
Hawkins’ big night was even more amazing, according to his coach, because he was at less than 100 percent.
“He wasn’t feeling well,” Diehl said.
Middletown finally beat St. Helena despite going scoreless for almost eight minutes – the final 7:16 of the third quarter and nearly a minute into the fourth quarter.
“They got rattled in the third by the crowd and St. Helena’s full-court pressure,” Diehl said. “But we buckled down … I’m just so proud of them.”
Middletown scored the first four points of the second half to go up 37-29, but didn’t score again in the quarter. St. Helena took advantage, but not full advantage. While the Saints steadily closed the gap and finally took a 38-37 lead – their first lead of the game – on Charlie Garrett’s putback of a teammate’s miss with 32.8 seconds left in the quarter, the Saints also struggled at times to put the ball in the basket against Middletown’s defense – St. Helena went scoreless from the 4:24 mark of the third until Michele Hanna hit two free throws with 1:14 left to cut Middletown’s lead to 37-36.
“Our defense did a really good job,” Diehl said, pointing to the Mustangs’ 17 team steals.
St. Helena held a 42-39 lead early with 6:11 left in the game when Hawkins scored his first two points of the quarter to make it 42-41. Bodhi Moore (11 points) buried a shot Middletown’s next time down the floor to put the Mustangs ahead, to stay as things turned out, at 43-42. Then it was No. 3 again and again, and again.
Anthony Bowerman added seven points in the win and Harrison Brown finished with six.
“We like to think of ourselves as a snowball rolling downhill,” Diehl said as the Mustangs enter the final week of the regular season. “We’re picking up speed and getting bigger and stronger as we go. Hopefully we can continue to ride this momentum into next week.”
Peter Oliver led the Saints, now 20-3 overall, with 12 points while Xander Kelperis added 11, Hanna seven and Dean Sommer six.
Middletown is 18-6 overall.
JV game
St. Helena defeated Middletown 65-53 in junior varsity action, eliminating Middletown (9-3, 16-7) from the league race as Kelseyville (12-0) defeated Clear Lake.
“Our first game without star sophomore Cody Perez (moved up to the varsity),” Middletown head coach Andy Brown said. “We didn’t shoot well enough in the field to win.”
Kolton Costlow’s 14 points led the Mustangs. Nalu Johnson was right behind with 13 and John Finney had 10.
“A hard-fought game that just didn’t go our way,” Brown said.
Varsity game notes: With his 11 points on Friday, Middletown’s Moore now has 500 for the season. The only other Middletown boy to score that many in a single season was Tyler Hunt (618) in 2007-08 … Middletown finished a solid fourth in the NCL I race last season behind co-champions Kelseyville and St. Helena and third-place Clear Lake.
