Clear Lake Falconhoops

In its toughest pre-district contest to date this season the Falcons came up short against #7 state ranked Manvel Tuesday night in Krueger Field House. The Falcons played well but had no answer for 6'7" Creighton-bound Leon Gilmore III who often scored at will. Gilmore is one of the top ranked players in the region (by the way, Gilmore's uncle is New Orleans Saints tight end Leon Gilmore).

It was a close game throughout with the Falcons up by 4, 33-29 at halftime and up by 1 after three quarters despite poor shooting from the field. The outcome was not decided until the waning minutes of the game. Manvel's sophomore #33 Mohammed Hussein  scored 18 points in the second half to keep the Mavs on top.

Lake shot 10 of 16 from the line (62.5%) despite Drake Green's perfect 8 of 8 from the charity stripe. This was their best so far this season. The unranked Lake squad looked very impressive at times against the noticeably talented Manvel team which is now 7-1 for the season. Their only loss came in their first game of the season where they were defeated 56-53 by Texas City.

The Falcon next face Milby in the opening round of the Carlisle/Krueger Classic Tournament Thursday at 6 pm.

Basketball fans should look forward to the district matchup between Manvel and Pearland (#12 state ranking). This should be one of the top contests in the region this season.

 Individual Scoring

Drake Green  15

Will West 14

Bradley George 9

Jordan Davis 8

Orion Lewis 5

Christian West 4

Freshman B Team Beats Dobie 46-38 by Chris Hickey
The Freshman B team stretched their win streak to five with a hard earned victory over a talented Dobie High School Longhorn team. The game was close throughout in this low-scoring game that featured effective pressure defense on both sides. The Falcons outscored the Longhorns in each of the first three quarters as they built up an 11 point lead going into the fourth quarter. But Dobie stormed back with three three-pointers to cut the lead to four. The battle tested Lake squad showed admirable poise as they made some timely baskets down the stretch including a jumper by David Boyd and two key free throws by Max Hickey to squelch the Dobie comeback.
The Falcon offense was led by 9 points with three from behind the arc by Matthew Tamburello and 8 points apiece from Nick Hasapes and Max Hickey as ten different Falcons scored.

The B team will play their first home game Tuesday at 4PM against Manvel.

Freshman B Team Defeats Thurgood Marshall 58-47

The Freshman B team continued a streak of impressive road victories with a hard fought 58-47 victory against a tough Fort Bend Marshall team.  The Falcons extended a six point first quarter lead to 15 points at the half and then weathered a tough Marshall press to hang on for the win. Lake combined a tenacious pressure defense with poised ball handling to move its early season record to 4-1 with another win against good competition.

The Falcon offense was paced by 13 points from Matthew Tamburello and 10 points from Ethan Partin as the team shot 58% on two point field goals.   The defense had a strong effort with 15 steals and 26 rebounds.

The B team is next in action at 11 AM on Saturday at Dobie High School.

By Robert Avery from the THE CITIZEN, Bay Area

DEER PARK – It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving weekend without leftover turkey and a Clear Lake JV boys basketball team winning the championship at the Deer Park JV Thanksgiving Basketball Tournament. For something like the fourth or fifth consecutive year, the Falcons claimed the tourney title with an unbeaten record, capped by a win over Humble in the championship game at Cotton Watkins Gym Saturday afternoon. Clear Lake finished with a 4-0 record, also knocking off Clements, Baytown Sterling and Deer Park in the semifinals by a 59-53 score. Humble had reached the title contest by defeating Pearland, a Deer Park sophomore team and Pasadena Memorial in the other semifinal game Saturday morning.

In the semifinal game with Deer Park, Clear Lake last trailed at 24-23 with 4:42 to play in the third period. But the junior Falcons used that final 4:42 to outscore Deer Park 13-4 to take the lead for good. The spree consisted of five Clear Lake buckets to none for Deer Park. Doing the damage was the group of Shawn Haag, T.J. Gittens, Cole Miller, Adam Bakdunes and the team’s top scorer, Peter Yim scoring the final five points. Yim’s 3-point goal with 1:20 remaining in the frame gave Lake its first double-digit lead of the contest at 36-26. A perfect 6-for-6 stretch at the foul line enabled Deer Park to close within 36-30, before another Yim 3-point goal and a Gittens lay-up pushed the lead to 11, the first of three 11-point lead. The last one arrived after the Falcons scored seven unanswered points, inflating a shaky 44-40 advantage back up to 51-40 with under four minutes to play. Deer Park would make one final lunge, closing within 54-52, but over the final 21 seconds Lake canned 5-of-6 from the foul line. Yim finished with 18 points, followed by Gittens’ 10 points with all 10 arriving in the second half. Ryan Lucas was another big second-half contributor. He scored seven points and they all arrived after halftime. Shawn Haag and Cole Miller netted six apiece, while Jordan Nicholas scored five points, all over the final eight minutes.

Deer Park received 18 points from Hunter Fuller, nine of that total coming in the fourth. Garrett Durham added 13 points as did D.J. Pendleton. The two offenses started out slow with the scoreboard only showing Deer Park leading 5-4 after one period. Yim had the four Falcon points. But things began to cook in the second period as the two teams exchanged the lead four times, ending with Deer Park still on top at 18-16.