Clear Lake Falconhoops

Clear Lake Trounces La Porte 58-38 Bi-District Playoff February 22, 2005 Tonight in the Stoney Phillips Field House in Pasadena, Texas, the Clear Lake Falcons whipped the La Porte Bulldogs 58-38 in the first (Bi-District) round of the Region III playoffs. The Bulldogs, one of the leading defensive teams in the region, got beat soundly by defense and poor shooting from the field. Sparked by big man Mark Murphy, the tenacious defense of Clear Lake and ice cold shooting from the field denied La Porte any field goals in the first quarter (the Dogs were 0 of 14 from the field in the first quarter). The Falcons led by a score of 15-1 at the end of the first quarter. That’s right, La Porte scored 1 point in an entire quarter! Guess you could say the Dogs were having some trouble with the Falcon defense. The Lake squad was rested, relaxed, and confident despite having been beaten at La Porte in the ninth game of the season. It was as if the Falcons knew they were a better team than La Porte and they had to “Just Do it” to prove it. In the second quarter, Clear Lake, with a more lax defense, scored 8 points to La Porte’s 5 before La Porte got on track and scored 10 unanswered points to bring the score to 23-16 in favor of the Falcons at halftime. Two junior refs and one intermediate ref provided what could only be called abominable officiating at times. One ref could not call anything but offensive fouls throughout the first half. Two of the three referees have the potential to develop into good refs but it was not obvious from their work tonight. At just under the 5 minute mark in the third quarter, Gordon Abner, on his way to five steals, five plus rebounds, and a game high 19 points, stole the ball and drove down for the stuff to put Lake ahead 30-18. That pretty much set the tone for the rest of the game. Lake was in control. At 1:43 remaining in the third quarter Kendrell Thompson hit a trey from the wing to put Lake up by 13, 35-22. Lake did not score again and the quarter closed at 35-26, La Porte down by only 9 points and still in the hunt. But the Falcons had other plans for the fourth quarter. They allowed the Dogs to close it to 9 again briefly before Scott Oswald “stopped and popped” from about ten feet out to bring the score to 40-28 at the 3:40 mark. In the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, Clear Lake steadily pulled away to increase their lead to 20, 51-31 when Justin Kurtz received an off-the-mark ally-oop pass from Andy Leveque. Justin had to reach way back to get the ball but he still brought it around to put it through the hoop. Wow! Despite what the scoreboard indicated, the final score was 58-28. This was a good win for the Clear Lake squad. They played with confidence and poise. Their athletic ability showed through on numerous occasions and they played together as a team. Now if they can just get some decent officiating and learn not to react to bad officiating. Both the players and the enthusiastic fans are reminded that there are those who make A's or B's, or C's or D's or even F's in different aspects of life, even in high school basketball officiating. Just think how frustrating it must be for the boys on the court who give so much and then are robbed by lazy or inept or inexperienced officials. There are some very good officials out there but why are they so hard to find? The Falcons face the Humble Wildcats (ranked 12th in the greater Houston area) Friday night at 7 p.m. in the Pasadena Memorial Gym. Don’t forget to watch out for the killer speed bumps on the side parking lot at Pasadena Memorial. The playoff bracket for the Region III playoffs posted on the web site will be updated after each round of the playoffs. Scoring for the Falcons: Gordon Abner 19 (game high)(5 steals)(5+ rebounds); Scott Oswald 9, Justin Kurtz 9, Mark Murphy 7 (6+ rebounds) , Armie Lewis 7 (6 assists), Kendrell Thompson 5, Andy Leveque 2. Scoring by quarter: 15-08-12-23 US 01-15-10-12 Them Score by Quarter: 15-23-35-58 Us 01-16-26-38 Them 2's: 17 of 36 (47%) 3's: 4 of 7 (57%) Free Throws: 12 of 23 (52%)