COUGARS HONOR NBA SUPERSTAR
Upper Lake varsity boys honor Kobe prior to league game with Credo
LAKE COUNTY >> With the death of Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant occurring only two days earlier, the Upper Lake High School varsity boys basketball team paid a special tribute to the NBA superstar nearly a year ago today prior to their North Central League II game with visiting Credo.
Until the COVID-19-delayed 2020-21 sports season starts, the Lake County Record-Bee will take a look back at the local sports happenings of a year ago and the teams and athletes who were making the headlines.
Varsity boys basketball
Upper Lake player Louis Avalos, a longtime Kobe Bryant and Los Angeles Lakers fan, led a special tribute for Kobe Bryant who had died two days earlier in a helicopter crash.
Avalos, a senior guard who normally wears No. 2, donned a No. 24 jersey — one of two numbers worn by Bryant during his Lakers playing days and both since retired by the team. Avalos also delivered a short speech about Bryant after the starting lineups were announced.
“He asked to wear No. 24 and I told him he could,” Upper Lake head coach Tony Arroyo said. “It was an emotional night for him and a lot of other Lakers fans up here, we have quite a few. He was definitely fired up. I knew from the start he was going to have a good night.”
Avalos responded with a 21-point performance, including two 3-pointers, to lead the Cougars (2-2 league, 14-5 overall) to a 50-46 victory, a win that put them back at the .500 mark in league play.
“They tried to guard him manto-man but he was just too quick,” Arroyo said. “He just kept going right around them.”
In fact, it was Upper Lake’s quickness versus Credo’s size the entire game, and quickness won out in the end, according to Arroyo, who said the Gryphon’s offense depends on putbacks and free throws to function.
“We could not keep them off the boards,” Arroyo said.
Likewise the Gryphon couldn’t handle Upper Lake’s overall team speed.
“They tried to press us and we scored off of that pretty easy,” Arroyo said.
The two teams were never separated by more than six points until early in the fourth quarter. Upper Lake gradually increased its lead to 12 by mid-quarter before Credo rallied down the stretch.
Dalton Slater had 11 points for the Cougars and Benat Love finished with six.
In other varsity boys basketball action nearly a year ago today:
Middletown 48, St. Helena 45
At Middletown, leading by 12 points entering the fourth quarter, the Middletown Mustangs had to hang on down the stretch to beat the St. Helena Saints in NCL I action.
It was the second win in as many nights for the Mustangs (54, 12-8), who were coming off a 78-59 victory at home on Monday against Kelseyville, a game during which senior Jimmy Rockwell scored 34 points with nine 3-pointers. Twenty-four hours later Rockwell came back with a respectable outing of 14 points and three more treys, but it was fellow senior Andres Cervantes who led the way with a near-triple-double performance of 19 points, 17 rebounds and seven steals.
“He was all over the place,” Middletown head coach G.J. Rockwell said.
Cervantes’ final two points were by the biggest as they sealed the victory. St. Helena had closed to 46-43 with seven seconds remaining. The Mustangs missed both ends of a double-bonus free-throw opportunity but Cervantes rebounded the second miss and scored to
make it 48-43.
St. Helena time ran out.
“They just started hitting shots and it got away from us,” Rockwell said of the Saints’ 16-7 fourth
scored
as
quarter. “We did enough at the end to close it out.”
Cervantes scored six of Middletown’s seven points in the final period.
Sammy Cervantes joined his brother and Rockwell in double figures with 11 points.
“We’ll take ’em any way we can get ’em,” Rockwell said of the victory.