Clear Lake Falconhoops

Kingwood 59 – Clear Lake 51

Today in the Aldine Campbell Center the Clear Lake Falcons met the Kingwood Mustangs in the Region III 5A Finals to decide who would get to make the trek to Austin next week to the state tournament. The #2 state-ranked Mustangs were making their fifth consecutive appearance in the regional playoffs. This was Clear Lake’s first regional finals in thirteen years. A Kingwood win clinches the Mustangs’ third consecutive state tournament appearance.

Clear Lake had every intention of stopping the Kingwood powerhouse and making the journey themselves but it was not meant to be this year. The underdog Falcons had the heart, the grit, and the determination, but not quite enough horsepower.

In the first quarter the lead changed ten times and the game was tied four times, a truly intense encounter. The first basket of the game came when Kendrell Thompson nailed a three pointer on an assist from RJ Turner. Always a good sign. On the first play down the court under Kingwood’s basket, Jimmy Witten caught a solid elbow from Kingwood’s post man Mike Singletary which completely knocked out Jimmy’s front tooth. Witten left the court briefly but returned, sans the front incisor, to reenter the game. There was no foul called on the event. A fired up Andrew Gorie replaced Witten and had two consecutive outstanding plays in the next 40 seconds. On the first he stole the ball which was intended for his opponent (Singletary). On the next trip down the court he took a charge from Singletary to cause a turnover. Kingwood took the lead 3-5 with 4:46 remaining in the first quarter. At the midpoint of the quarter it was tied at 5. This would be the first of four ties in the first quarter. It was tied again at 6 with 3:10 left in the period. Lake went ahead 9-8 but the Mustangs next basket put them back in the lead 9-10. A second three pointer by Kendrell put Lake back ahead 12-10. This see-saw lead change was a good indicator of how the game would go.

A brief digression to mention that Armie Lewis was playing injured is also noteworthy. Lewis was playing with a noticeable limp from an injury received the night before in the Hastings game but he insisted he was okay. Talk about grit and determination from these youngsters.

Kingwood tied it at 12 before a hard fought basket underneath by Jimmy Witten put Lake up 14-12. Kingwood tied it at 14 but as the clock ticked out the few remaining seconds of the first quarter, Kendrell drained his fourth consecutive trey to make it 17-14 Lake up by 3. What a great first quarter!

In the second quarter it was tied at 17 and 19. Clear Lake retook the lead 22-21 on a trey by Armie Lewis. Kingwood extended their lead to 7, 24-31 by the end of the first half. In the first half Kingwood got 19 rebounds (9 offensive) while Clear Lake had a total of 4. Clear Lake shot two free throws in the half compared to nine by the Mustangs.

In a very exciting third quarter when Kingwood normally puts their opponents away, Lake stunned the Mustangs by taking the lead in the game. At the 6:36 mark in the quarter a basket by RJ and two free throws by Kendrell made it 28-33. At the 5:33 point Armie drained a trey to make it 31-36. Another three pointer by Armie made it 34-38. A basket by Kendrell made it 36-38. Kendrell then got a critical rebound, dribbled down the court on the left side, and passed back to Armie at the top of the key. Armie nailed his third consecutive three of the quarter to make it 39-38 with 3:22 showing on the scoreboard clock. Then a steal by Christian followed by a leading pass to RJ as he and his opponent raced down the court toward the Lake goal. RJ never really gained control of the ball but somehow he made the ball go through the hoop - a truly outstanding lay-up by RJ. 41-38 Lake. With two minutes remaining in the pivotal third quarter, Clear Lake led 41-40. The standing crowd watched the excitement as the ball changed hands a couple of times in the last minute. In the final seconds, #11 Trumaine Johnson, who had really not been an offensive force in the game due to terrific defense by RJ and his teammates, drove in at an angle from the left side of the basket to loft an arching shot to put Kingwood ahead 41-42 as the clock expired. Johnson traveled so badly he should have been wearing track shoes but no call. It was his only field goal of the game but it gave Kingwood some added inspiration.

The first goal of the final quarter came at 7:23 when Jimmy drove down the lane and passed off to Fulton for a basket from underneath, 43-42 Lake. Kingwood then proceeded to rack up 9 unanswered points with two treys and two free throws before Kendrell hit another three pointer to put the score at 46-51 with 2:40 remaining in the game. Kingwood went to their slowdown game to run the clock and made their free throws down the stretch to win the game 51-59 despite a valiant effort from the Falcons.

Reflections
Despite the loss Clear Lake has so much to be proud of in their season. With their appearance in the regional final, Clear Lake made it to the top eight teams in the state in 5A. Not bad for a team that was unranked in the region for the first two months of the season. Not bad for a team that was unranked on the state level for almost three months of the regular season. It is always better to move up in the rankings than to start out high and move down so few minded that this very special team was underrated throughout most of the season. Many high school basketball aficionados claimed that Lake was too short, that with only a 6’5” starting post man Lake could not play with the bigger teams but Clear Lake proved them wrong several times. This team could shoot the lights out and they are all shooters. And they are all great kids as well. There were a few disappointing moments along the way but overall there were so many thrilling moments of premier basketball packed with excitement and enthusiasm that this team will be remembered for a long time at Clear Lake High School.

Soapbox
1. Officiating
Kingwood is a very physical team of big strong boys who are very well coached and adept at stretching the limits of what constitutes a foul. At best officiating is a very inexact endeavor administered by humans prone to error as we all are. In other words, sometimes the fellas in the striped shirts call every little picky foul their x-ray vision might perceive. Other times they just let them play and barely blow the whistle. In this case, these hot shot officials imported from an adjacent region were observed allowing too much fouling to occur in the Friday semifinals. If they allowed as much “physical interaction” as they did in the semifinals, it would favor Kingwood and that is exactly what happened.

While I am on the subject of the officials, let’s grade their paper. They allowed too many lane violations by Kingwood, they did not call a couple of dozen fouls which should have been called, and they failed miserably at enforcing the five second closely guarded rule. One of the reasons the officiating in San Diego was noticeably better was their diligent enforcement of the basic rules namely traveling, closely guarded for five seconds, and lane violations. Sure we had the best officials in the city for the San Diego tournament but today’s contest was a 5A regional final. Did we have the best officials San Antonio had to offer (or wherever)? In my opinion, two of the three officials calling the finals game today are going to be great officials but they are certainly not there yet. One official clearly demonstrated twice either he did not know the closely guarded rule or he was confused. This is not an excuse for why my decorum was less than exemplary as I verbally reprimanded the refs on numerous occasions in this game but it does partly explain my behavior. These boys have worked too hard for too long to be denied anything less than the best officiating money can buy. Anyone familiar with the politics involved in an official receiving a choice assignment like a 5A regional playoff (where they receive a percentage of the gate) could offer an explanation of why they are chosen and I do not begrudge them the money. Perhaps they should receive more. But I want them to earn every penny of it in every second of the game by always doing their very best.

 2. Wear your seat belt
Since I am very old school but not so old I do not remember how much orthodontia costs, I would impose two requirements on any child or grandchild of mine who wanted to play high school level boys basketball the way it is played today. He must, without exception, wear a mouth guard and he must wear eye protection. The game has gotten so much faster and with so much more allowable contact it is unwise to even consider not having eye and teeth protection for boys this age. This is not a recent conclusion of mine due to Jimmy's unfortunate incident. It just reminded me again how necessary it is.

3. Unsportsmanlike-like conduct of the Kingwood student fans
Kingwood has one of the premier basketball programs in the state of Texas regardless of whether they recruit some of their players or not. I have probably witnessed at least 20 Kingwood basketball games in the last five years. This year’s student fans are not the worst of the lot but loudly booing their opponents when they arrive on the court and flagrant taunting of individual players when the game is not underway is poor sportsmanship and simply low class. This is not the fault of the student fans; this is a failing in leadership of the parents and school officials to influence their children properly. Kingwood has a better team than last year when they lost to Plano in the 5A state finals but I cannot cheer for them at the state tournament again this year.

Photos for this game can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/falconhoops

Individual Scoring:
Kendrell Thompson 19, Armie Lewis 12, RJ Turner 11,
Jimmy Witten 7, Fulton Brisco 2

FALCON STATS	FG made	FG attempts	%
2's	9	23	39.1%
3's	9	20	45.0%
free throws	6	7	85.7%

SCORE BY QUARTER	1	2	3	4
Clear Lake	17	24	41	51
Kingwood	14	31	42	59

LINESCORE	1	2	3	4	Final
Clear Lake	17	7	17	10	51
Kingwood	14	17	11	17	59

REBOUNDS	LAKE	THEM
Offensive	2	14
Defensive	6	16