Knights overwhelm Calistoga Wildcats 83-35 in first-round action at Kelseyville
By Brian Sumpter
Lake County Sports on Facebook
KELSEYVILLE >> They may have lost out on a league title this season, but the Kelseyville Knights are feeling quite at home as a powerful Division 4 team residing in this year’s North Coast Section Division 5 playoff field.
Just ask the Calistoga Wildcats.
In a game Kelseyville led from seconds after the opening tip to the final buzzer, the Knights steamrolled the poor Wildcats 83-35, the game mercifully concluding with a running clock in the fourth quarter.
Kelseyville’s recent JV call-ups played most of that final period after the last of the Knights’ starters and deep bench had checked out of the game with 4:40 remaining.
The Knights scored the game’s first nine points, seven of those by a red-hot Brock Barrick, before the Wildcats finally got on the scoreboard on a Diego Perez 3-pointer with 4:18 left in the quarter. Barrick would go on to score 13 of his team-leading 20 points, including three 3-pointers, in the opening period as the Knights raced out to a 19-5 lead.
“We were definitely due for a hot start,” Kelseyville head coach Oscar Lopez said. “The guys came out hungry and it showed. We stepped up today.”
The Knights are also playing with a chip on their shoulders the size of the Empire State Building after they were forced to forfeit a game last week against Cloverdale, a loss that cost them a share of the North Central League I title. The forfeit was handed down by the Kelseyville Unified School District office after members of the team posted an “unsportsmanlike” photo on the Internet following a league win over archrival Clear Lake at Lakeport.
Lopez said the team’s focus now is simply to win each game as it comes and not look ahead. If the Knights (17-10) can reach the section finals, which would require two more wins beginning with Friday’s quarterfinal-round matchup against College Prep High School in Oakland (7 p.m. start), they’ll be guaranteed a pennant – either runner-up or championship – they were all but assured in a league race that took a most unsatisfactory turn last week.
Moving forward because they can’t go back, Lopez said the Knights won’t be guilty of “looking ahead” as they prepare for upcoming sectional games.
“We just need to keep going, keep doing what we do well,” Lopez added. “Our depth is our strength, and we have even more depth now.”
Kelseyville promoted a handful of players from its league-champion junior varsity team – Nick Arredondo, Joey Watson and Jair Carrillo – before Tuesday’s game, so the team is deeper on the bench than ever.
That depth isn’t just a talking point, either. One look at Kelseyville’s scoring against Calistoga will tell you that. Besides 20 points from Barrick, Sebastian Chavez finished with 11, Kyle Watkins and Gene Holdenried added 10 apiece while Adam Astrup and Max Hommer each had eight. The team had 11 3-pointers divided among seven players, with Barrick’s four treys leading the way.
“The nice thing about this team is that if one player doesn’t have a good night, someone else always does,” Lopez said. “We are not reliant on just one player.”
As Calistoga (15-5), the NCL II runner-up, found out in a hurry, and the hard way.
About the only opportunity the Wildcats had to make a dent in Kelseyville’s double-digit lead occurred during the first couple of minutes of the second period when the Knights went cold from the field and turned the ball over a few more times than Lopez would have liked.
“We got a little sloppy with the ball,” Lopez said.
But that door of opportunity slammed shut swiftly as Calistoga really had no answer in terms of solving a Kelseyville defense that forced all kinds of turnovers. The Knights eventually went on a 12-4 run to open it up, including 3-pointers from Tyler Bryant and Ryder Leary.
The Wildcats hit back-to-back 3-pointers – the only time until late in the fourth quarter that they would score on consecutive possessions – to get at close at 33-15. Watkins answered with his own 3-pointer before Hommer scored four straight points to making 40-15.
If Calistoga thought it was in trouble by then, it would only get worse. Kelseyville rolled out a 33-point third quarter to go up 73-24 by quarter’s end. The Knights’ biggest lead was 80-26, at which point the Knights sent their JV call-ups into the game. Carrillo’s 3-pointer accounted for Kelseyville’s final points.
It was a 180-degree turnaround for Kelseyville from last-season’s 91-37 loss to eventual section champion Justin-Siena in the opening round of the Division 4 playoffs at Napa. About the only common denominator is that both teams – Calistoga and Justin-Siena – reside in Napa County. Both lost Tuesday night in the opening round – Justin-Siena in a Division 4 game – while the Knights are alive and well.
