Athletes of the week
(Published during the high school sports season)
(For the week of Jan. 19 through Jan. 25)
Boys
Willie Tadder (So.) Middletown High School basketball
He not only played lockdown defense against Clear Lake’s Zane McAuley on Tuesday night, but he contributed all week on the offensive end as well as the Mustangs, despite losing to McAuley’s Cardinals 63-58, closed out the week tied with Kelseyville for the league lead. Tasked with slowing down McAuley on his march to 1,000 career points, Tadder held the Cardinals’ scoring leader to six points, three shy of what he needed to reach the milestone, while also scoring nine for the Mustangs. In a 74-57 Middletown win over Cloverdale on Friday, Tadder finished with 18 points and three assists.
Girls
Grace Williams (Fr.) Middletown High School basketball & Amelie Davis (Fr.) Clear Lake High School basketball
Two freshmen basketball players you’re going to be hearing a lot about in the future had a pretty good week for their respective teams. Grace Williams, a starter for the Middletown junior varsity girls team, has already gotten her feet wet at the varsity level, moving up a handful of times this season when the varsity was short of players for a variety of reasons. In fact, Williams pulled off a double-double of sorts on Tuesday, not only scoring a team-leading 15 points as the Middletown JVs beat Clear Lake 39-37 in a first-place showdown at Lakeport, but then leading the varsity in scoring with 11 points that same night in a 50-40 loss to Clear Lake. Williams also scored four points off the bench Friday night in a 58-16 home win over Cloverdale. Likewise, Clear Lake’s Amelie Davis, a varsity player, also appeared in both Middletown girls games Tuesday, moving down to help the shorthanded JVs and scoring six points off the bench in their 39-37 loss to the Mustangs, but also scoring a team-leading 14 points in the varsity’s 50-40 win over Middletown. Davis came back on Friday to score a team-best 16 points with eight rebounds in the varsity’s 50-43 loss to St. Helena.
