Cards reach Division 5 championship game
CLHS earns berth in section final with hard-fought 72-58 win
LAKE BOUNTY >> Winning their 18th straight game, the Clear Lake Cardinals rode another hot shooting night from senior guard Darius Ford to a 72-58 victory over San Domenico of San Anselmo nearly a year ago today in the semifinals of the North Coast Section Division 5 boys basketball playoffs at Lakeport.
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.
While the final score against San Domenico might seem a bit on the lopsided side, the Cardinals definitely had to work hard for their 26th victory overall and final home win of the season.
San Domenico went from trailing 19-5 late in the first quarter to leading 30-27 with 3:16 remaining in the first half. Clear Lake responded with a 9-0 run to push ahead 36-30 by halftime. The Cardinals then unleashed an all-out offensive to open the third quarter, going up by as many as 16 points. But again, the Panthers simply refused to lay down, cutting Clear Lake’s lead to 58-52 with 4:08 left in the game.
“They just never quit, they were relentless,” Clear Lake head coach Soctt De Leon said of the Panthers (17-12). “When they got us back on our heels, when they got pressure on us, that’s when they made their runs. When they got us back on our heels, they were able to control things.”
Clear Lake used a 14-6 scoring spree in the final four minutes to secure a berth in the Division 5 championship game against No. 1 seed Stuart Hall of San Francisco.
“It’s just an incredible season, the most unbelievable group of guys to do this with,” De Leon said.
Ford led the Cardinals with 26 points despite beingin the sight soft he San Domenico defense all game.
“They were defending him really, really well in the first half, but he was going to break free at some point,” De Leon said.
Every one of Clear Lake’s five starters came up big at a different point in the game. Senior center Jaron Mertle, often the target of San Domenico double- and triple-teams, still ended up with 19 points and seven rebounds. Junior guard Donavin Valadez scored six of his eight points in the first half, Tyler Cerini finished with nine points and pulled down a team-best 13 rebounds, and Travis Howe added eight points and continued his incredible run of great defense.
Clear Lake’s starters played nearly the entire way although Evan Coakley and Treppa Marcks provided some quality minutes off the bench.
“We needed that core group in there,” De Leon said. “They get in a great rhythm and it’s hard to pull them off the floor.”
The Cardinals showed the Panthers plenty of respect near game’s end when Mertle had a wide open lane to the basket for what would have been an easy dunk, but he simply backed off and let the final seconds run off the clock.
“That was sportsmanship,” De Leon said of his senior center. “That’s the kind of kid Jaron is. “I really appreciate it. I know he wanted to throw it down, but he did the right thing because we had the game won.”