{"id":5562,"date":"2026-02-11T21:40:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=5562"},"modified":"2026-02-11T21:40:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T21:40:30","slug":"knights-tighten-up-defense-stop-eagles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/?p=5562","title":{"rendered":"Knights tighten up defense, stop Eagles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cardinals make their free throws in OT to knock off Lower Lake<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lake County Sports on Facebook<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CLOVERDALE >> Tightening up the defense, especially in the second half, worked wonders for the Kelseyville Knights on Tuesday night as they held off the Cloverdale Eagles 59-54 in North Central League I varsity boys basketball action at Cloverdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combined with Fort Bragg\u2019s 64-44 loss to St. Helena on Tuesday, the Knights (8-5 league, 10-14 overall) enter their final league game with a chance to clinch sole possession of second place in the NCL I standings and a playoff berth. To do it, they\u2019ll have to beat Fort Bragg (8-5, 11-12) in Fort Bragg on Thursday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While dropping five of six in league action put Kelseyville in a position of having to win its final three games to capture a playoff berth, the Knights are two-thirds of the way there following back-to-back victories over Clear Lake and Cloverdale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe put ourselves in a tough position and it\u2019s not over yet,\u201d Kelseyville head coach Chaze Russell said. \u201cWe still have to go over there and beat them. That\u2019s not an easy place to play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelseyville dropped an 80-63 decision to Fort Bragg on Jan. 20 in Kelseyville, so the Knights also have the revenge factor working in their favor as they head over to the Mendocino County coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloverdale jumped out to a 19-12 lead against Kelseyville, at which point Russell said he told his players that their defense needed to tighten up significantly if they wanted to get back into the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey responded,\u201d Russell said. \u201cWe progressively played better from that point.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelseyville closed to 31-27 by halftime before taking control of the game in the third quarter, all while limiting the Eagles (5-8, 12-13) to nine points in the period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Arredondo (20 points) hit two of his six 3-pointers in the third quarter and Riley Lopez scored all six of his points in the period, all on 3-pointers, as the Knights pushed ahead 46-39.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter that I told them to keep playing good defense and not let them go on a run,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cloverdale got as close as three points twice, but Kelseyville held the lead down the stretch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt stayed at three for like a minute and 30 seconds,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joey Watson (13 points) hit a big free throw for us, missed the other, but Gordon (Astrup) pulled down the rebound,\u201d Russell said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Astrup added 18 points in the win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the JV game, Kelseyville fell out of the league race with a 56-53 loss to Cloverdale. The Knights are now 9-4 in the NCL I standings and trail both Middletown and Clear Lake by one game, and those two teams face each other Thursday in Middletown, the winner taking the outright league title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had a shot to tie (or the league title) and that just fell through the door,\u201d Kelseyville head coach Stan Weiper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Knights needed to beat Cloverdale on Tuesday and Fort Bragg on the road Thursday to clinch no worse than a share of the league title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey (Eagles) played pretty well, and we didn\u2019t shoot well again,\u201d Weiper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hugh O\u2019Boyle\u2019s 17 points powered the Knights while Chris Salmina added 16 and Darin Sprague nine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kelseyville is 12-8 overall going into its season finale at Fort Bragg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other NCL I action Tuesday:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake 83, Lower Lake 78 (OT)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At Lakeport, Clear Lake scored all 10 of its overtime points at the free-throw line, that after struggling from the line in regulation, to beat Lower Lake and avenge a 73-67 loss to the Trojans on Jan. 16 in Lower Lake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAfter struggling from the line in regulation, we were able to lock in during overtime,\u201d Clear Lake head coach Shady Cerezo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake went 10-for-12 from the line in the overtime period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a great win for our seniors to come out on top the last time on their home floor,\u201d Cerezo said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t be any happier for them. Our six seniors, Jesse (Hayes), AJ (Bruch), Zane (McAuley), Sawyer (Smith), Ryken (Villanueva) and Kaden (Graham) left it all out on the court tonight and played their hearts out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McAuley finished with 27 points, putting him over 1,100 (1,109) for his career while Bruch added 22 points and Smith 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m proud of these guys for how they battled throughout the game and made enough plays to come out with the win,\u201d Cerezo said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower Lake forced overtime when Kaimelo Connolly hit a 3-pointer in the final seconds of regulation to tie the score at 73-all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t leave those guys alone,\u201d Lower Lake head coach Jay Jakubowski said Clear Lake\u2019s shooters, including McAuley, who hurt the Trojans (5-8, 11-14) with several clutch 3-pointers. \u201cThey just played really well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower Lake took a 40-39 lead into halftime while Clear Lake held a 58-57 advantage going to the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Noah Hakala\u2019s 29 points and 23 rebounds fueled Lower Lake. Connolly finished with 13 points, Raijhier McKneely added nine points and nine rebounds, Brody Shields had nine points, all on 3-pointers, and Tucker Benson had eight points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake (7-6, 12-13) travels to Middletown on Thursday for its league and regular-season finale, looking for a season sweep of the Mustangs, who clinched the outright league championship Tuesday with a win over Upper Lake and a Fort Bragg loss to St. Helena.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake beat Middletown 63-58 in a double-overtime thriller Jan. 20 in Lakeport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the JV game, Clear Lake beat Lower Lake 58-40 to set up a battle for the outright league championship Thursday in Middletown where both teams bring 10-3 records into the final game of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clear Lake improved to 16-8 overall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aiden Osorio\u2019s 13 points led Lower Lake (3-10, 9-15). Zane Maninger had 12 points and Roy Percoats 11.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lower Lake finishes up its season Thursday in Cloverdale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cardinals make their free throws in OT to knock off Lower Lake Lake County Sports on Facebook CLOVERDALE >> Tightening up the defense, especially in the second half, worked wonders for the Kelseyville Knights on Tuesday night as they held off the Cloverdale Eagles 59-54 in North Central League I varsity boys basketball action at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,16,20,12,17,18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5562"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5563,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5562\/revisions\/5563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briansumptersports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}