Clear Lake Falconhoops

Clear Lake 70 – Alvin 58
February 7, 2006

Tonight in the Alvin gymnasium the Clear Lake Falcons secured a victory and by doing so, quelled the need for revenge after losing to Alvin for the first time ever in Lake’s gym in the first round of district play. Despite Alvin’s 3-5 district record this season to date, the Yellow Jackets seem to always be able to get up for the Falcons so the outcome of tonight’s game was not certain. This was a must win game for Clear Lake if they hope to make the playoffs and they rose to the occasion.

Clear Lake took an early lead in the game and never trailed. Alvin came within three points several times but could not close despite some help from the zebra brigade.

Highlights of the game

1. Some smooth moves by Kendrell Thompson as he showed that Alvin could not stop him. Thompson scored a game high 24 points, 16 in the second half.

2. A technical foul called on Coach McDonald at the start of the second half when he very mildly expressed his disdain for a stupid call by a ref when the Falcons ran their classic opening mid-court in-bound play at the start of the second half. This is only the third technical I can remember on our coach. The last was in a Duncanville game about eight years ago.

3. Justin Kurtz got ejected early in the second half. The ref called Justin for a flagrant foul (throwing an elbow to the face of his opponent while they were awaiting a free throw rebound) and justifiably ejected him. The ref was one of the few who saw the infraction but it was a vicious, intentional payback type foul. Surely the official was trying to send a message to Justin that such behavior is not tolerated. Justin’s removal did not make a difference in the outcome of the game but it could have.

The referees should never be the main focus of the game but unfortunately it happened in this game. A few real stinkers and enough frequent bad calls were made to raise the ire of the Lake fans and keep it raised. There were a total of 44 fouls called in the game. That is a large number of fouls. The officials were probably doing their best but they just weren’t seasoned enough to call a 5A game like this one. The Lake crowd was generally not pleased with the officiating especially in the second half  (like that is anything new).

4. Eleven unanswered points by the Falcons in the fourth quarter to put the game out of reach (nine free throws).

5. Six consecutive free throws and some key rebounds by Christian Enriquez in the fourth quarter (Lake shot 17 of 24 in the quarter).

6. Seven rebounds and four steals by Armie Lewis.

7. Rock solid play by Fulton Brisco. Once again Brisco demonstrated smart, dependable, almost error free basketball. How can we get Fulton more playing time?

8. Good team basketball with mostly sound judgment in shot selection but too much casual passing against some quick Alvin guards. Unlike  Alvin’s performance in the first game, they failed to fully capitalize on many Lake passes which were "interceptable". Lucky for Lake. This will probably not be true for a team which Lake might meet in the playoffs so Lake needs to clean this up quick.

This was a good win for the Falcons diminished by bad officiating and some poor individual sportmanship. With noticeably lesser talent, the effort by Alvin to attempt to defeat Clear Lake must be admired. They really tried hard.

In other district action Clear Creek defeated Clear Brook 66-41 and Galveston Ball beat Brazoswood 60-49.

Individual Scoring:
Kendrell Thompson 24,
Armie Lewis 13 (7 rebounds, 4 steals),
Justin Kurtz 8, Jimmy Witten 6, Fulton Brisco 6, Christian Enriquez 6 (6 of 6 free throws in the fourth quarter), RJ Turner 4, Andy Leveque 3

Turnovers: 15

		Clear Lake		Alvin
	made	attempts	made	attempts
2's	17	32	16	31
3's	3	8	4	14
free throws	27	36	14	21

SCORE BY QUARTER	1	2	3	4
Clear Lake	17	32	46	70
Alvin	12	24	43	58

LINESCORE	1	2	3	4	Final
Clear Lake	17	15	14	24	70
Alvin	12	12	19	15	58

REBOUNDS	LAKE	THEM
Offensive	7	7
Defensive	17	11