Clear Lake Falconhoops

Clear Lake 60- Alvin 56

Tonight's victory is a cause for celebration. The Clear Lake Falcons are District 24-5A Co-Champions. In the Alvin gym in the last varsity game of the regular season, the Clear Lake Falcons defeated the Alvin Yellow Jackets 60-56 to cinch the District Championship. Both Pearland and Clear Lake finished district play with 11-1 records and will each be named District Co-Champions. A coin toss will decide the seeding in the playoffs. The first place team from our district will face the fourth place team from District 23-5A, either Fort Bend Marshall or Fort Bend Dulles, in the top half of the bracket. Likewise, the second place team from our district will face the third place team from District 23-5A in the bottom half of the bracket. The tie between Marshall and Dulles has not yet been decided for third and fourth place. Stay tuned.

But much of the Clear Lake crowd departing the Alvin gym after the victory did not seem as if they had just won a district championship because Clear Lake had not delivered another stellar performance. Who knows why Clear Lake does not typically play their best at Alvin? Alvin is usually a thorn in the side of the Falcons and tonight was no exception. For Alvin, with only two district wins, there was nothing but bragging rights for the spoiler on the line. Alvin could have kept Lake from winning the district championship with a win so they were pumped (i.e. motivated to us old folks). For Lake there was a lot riding on this game. Alvin has only beaten Lake twice in the last twenty some odd years in basketball so it is usually Lake’s game to lose. Tonight, with the district co-championship at stake and armed with the knowledge of a 30 point win over Alvin in Lake’s gym in the first round, the Falcons played just well enough to win, no more. Against a team with a 17-16 record, Clear Lake squeaked by.

After a strong offensive first quarter combined with a very good offensive second quarter, the score was 33-40, Lake up by 7 at the half. Lake slightly dominated and controlled the tempo of the game in the first half with their offensive prowess and sporadically effective defense. Does that sound familiar? Alvin pulled to within 3 points,31-34, with just under four minutes remaining in the second quarter. A trey by Kendrell Thompson at the buzzer put Lake up by 7 at the half.

During the halftime break Alvin did a better job of making the necessary adjustments overall but Clear Lake did do a good job of hindering Justin Ledet in the paint in the second half. Alvin scored from outside as easily as they scored from inside but that too, was sporadic, so Lake was able to maintain a slight lead and barely stay in control. Lake had instances of impressive offensive precision while displaying frequent defensive weakness that you could ride a Harley through. With no abundance of talent, the pesky Alvin squad should be proud of how well they played the Falcons to a four point loss. At the end of the third quarter it was a five point game 47-52. Several of Alvin’s losses this season have been close but this one was hard to believe for Lake fans.

In the fourth quarter Alvin pulled to within 2, 52-54, with 5:28 remaining on the scoreboard clock. With 2:37 remaining in the game Alvin tied it at 56 when Justin Ledet, their most talented player, turned and drove to the bucket just as he had several times previously in the game (Ledet had 17 points for the outing). In the last 38 seconds Lake retook the lead on two free throws from Kendrell and a final basket by Fulton Brisco (who had one of his better games of the season) to give Lake the narrow victory.

It is not that the Falcons played badly, they did not, but their defense was weak to non-existent too often. Solid, often impressive offense but this game has to be played on both ends of the court. Any decent 5A coach in the playoffs will quickly spot the Falcon defensive breakdowns and capitalize on them earlier than Alvin did.

Another major deficiency of Clear Lake’s play in this game was their play off the bench. It was not even close to the level displayed previously this season. Few good things happened when a reserve came into the game and not a single goal or free throw scored came from a reserve player (for the first time this season). That is a radical departure from the rest of the season and will contribute to the quick demise of Clear Lake’s playoff hopes if the reserves continue this slump.

Since the reserves did not score and none of the starters other than Fulton scored more than one basket in the second half, alarm bells should be going off in the Lake gym in practice on Thursday. Fulton scored three baskets in the second half on the same successfully executed play that isolates him under the basket. Alert, disciplined play by his teammates caused it to work.

There is the fervent hope among Clear Lake's loyal following that the Falcons got this ugliness out of their system and will be ready to, once again, play premiere basketball in the playoffs. After all, they have been known to step it up several notches when they have to.

Photos for this game can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/falconhoops after 6 p.m. Thursday. 

Individual Scoring:
Kendrell Thompson 17, Fulton Brisco 14, Armie Lewis 13, RJ Turner 10,
Jimmy Witten 6

FALCON STATS	FG made	FG attempts	%
2's	19	31	61.3%
3's	5	16	31.2%
free throws	7	8	87.5%

SCORE BY QUARTER	1	2	3	4
Clear Lake	24	40	52	60
Alvin	16	33	47	56

LINESCORE	1	2	3	4	Final
Clear Lake	24	16	12	8	60
Alvin	16	17	14	9	56

REBOUNDS	LAKE	THEM
Offensive	6	7
Defensive	7	16