Alyssa John, Aimee Schaefers finished with double-doubles in road loss to Santa Rosa
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SANTA ROSA >> The Division 5 Upper Lake Cougars gave the Division 2 Santa Rosa Panthers all they could want in the opening round of the North Coast Section Division 4 girls basketball playoffs Wednesday night in Santa Rosa, falling 55-49.
How does a school the size of Upper Lake (308 students) end up facing a school the size of Santa Rosa (1,554 students) in the sectional postseason tournament? It’s part of the wonder that is the section’s relatively new competitive equity seeding system. Teams can move up or down a maximum of two divisions, which is what happened to Santa Rosa. Upper Lake moved up one division to Division 4.
Regardless, the Cougars did their best to keep their season alive, coming up just a bit short against a Santa Rosa team that finished second in the North Bay-Redwood League standings this season against the likes of Ukiah, Healdsburg, Piner and St. Vincent.
“I am very of the girls for stepping up and playing every minute of each quarter,” Upper Lake head coach Raelene Cromwell said. “They learned to play against aggressive defense, but the clock just ran out on us.”
Alyssa John led the Cougars with 20 points, including 11 free throws, and 16 rebounds. The junior is on pace to top 1,000 career points sometime next season. Sophomore guard Rylee Zimmerschied added 14 points, seven rebounds and four steals, and senior center Aimee Schaefers had 10 points, 14 rebounds and seven blocks.
“It was nice seeing all the girls hitting the floor and tying up the ball,” Cromwell said.
Upper Lake won its first 11 games of the season before running into some tougher competition. The Cougars finished 6-8 (fifth place) in the North Central League I and ended up 16-11 overall.
