Upper Lake-Middletown get things started

Annual tourney runs through Saturday at KHS gym

KELSEYVILLE >> It’s Upper Lake vs. Middletown in the varsity girls bracket to open the 49th annual Stokes Tournament on Thursday at the Kelseyville High School gym.

Upper Lake (8-1) and Middletown (5-3) are both off to 2-0 starts in their respective leagues — Upper Lake in the North Central League II and Middletown in the NCL I — and figure to be in the thick of things when NCL I and NCL II action resumes in early January.

Middletown-Upper Lake tips off at noon, the first of six firstround games Thursday. The tournament runs through Saturday. The rest of Thursday’s schedule has Upper Lake vs. Elsie Allen (boys) at 1:30 p.m., Point Arena vs. Lower Lake (girls) at 3 p.m., Middletown vs. Forest Lake (boys) at 4:30 p.m., Kelseyville vs. Ferndale (girls) at 6 p.m., and Lower Lake vs. Ukiah (boys) at 7:30p.m.

The two other boys teams in the field — Willits and host Kelseyville — won’t play until Friday. Willits draws the Upper Lake-Elsie Allen loser at 10:30 a.m. while Kelseyville meets the Upper Lake-Elsie Allen winner at 6 p.m. Willits couldn’t play on Thursday because it has only two open games on its schedule and the Stokes Tournament is a threegame tournament. As a result, Kelseyville agreed to a Thursday bye so that other tourney teams would get their full three games.

Kelseyville’s boys (3-3) enter play on a three-game winning streak while the Kelseyville girls (0-5) are still looking for their first win of the season.

The 2020 Stokes Tournament was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When last held in 2019, Cloverdale won the varsity boys division while Upper Lake captured the girls division.