Mustangs girls and boys sweep by Upper Lake

Both the St. Vincent girls team and the St. Vincent boys team rolled over Upper Lake in home games.|

St. Vincent got a terrific defensive effort from sophomore Katie Gross, and the Lady Mustangs pieced together enough offense to frustrate Upper Lake 36-27 on Friday in DeCarli Gym.

The hard-earned victory was the seventh in succession in North Central League II League play for coach Art Walker’s club, and it avenged an earlier loss at the hands of the Lady Cougars.

Gross filled in quickly for Taylor Owen who picked up three quick fouls guarding Natalie Karlsson, the top Division V scorer in the North Coast Section. A flurry of quick reaches moved Owen to the bench, but Walker had Gross as a back-up, and it could not have worked better.

The second-year off guard picked up the slack by shadowing the volume shooting Karlsson from one end of the court to the other, and held the prolific scorer without a single point in the first half. Karlsson, who came into the game averaging 21.9 points per contest, began to show signs of frustration, throwing up wild shots, and it played into the hands of the Mustangs.

Overall, Karlson hoisted 31 shots from the floor, and wound up with only six points with Gross always managing to stay in front of her with a sliding bit of superlative defense.

“Katie was amazing tonight,” noted a very pleased Walker. “They beat us last time when Karlsson went off for 27 points in the second half. It is our goal that it never happens again.”

“This is a team game, and our girls came together even though scoring was difficult to come by. I was very happy with our effort tonight.”

Normally high-scoring senior center Olivia DeGraca was completely bottled up in the first half, and scored only two points as the Lady Mustangs grimly clung to a low scoring 16-13 halftime advantage.

With shooting guard McKenna Wilson-Kay connecting on some key shots to keep things close, DeGraca finally came alive to tack on 12 points down the stretch, and the Mustangs pulled away for good.

DeGraca recorded a flurry of put back shots to finish with 14 points to pace all scorers as St. Vincent improved to 11-8 for the season and 7-2 in the NCL II. The steady Wilson-Kay added 12 points, a couple of baskets resulting from nice assists by Claire Galton.

It was a night of total frustration for the Lady Cougars as they slipped into third in league play with a record of 7-3. Sophomore center Brenna Sanchez kept things active in the middle, scoring nine points while pulling down seven rebounds.

Upper Lake might have made a better run if it would have converted much of anything from the charity stripe. The cold-shooting Cougars were a miserable 4 of 20 from the line. Karlsson was obviously off her game, converting only 1 of 9 free throws.

Owen finally re-entered the game, but the defense by Gross and Lauren Vollert had things well in control.

Boys blitz Cougars

The St. Vincent boys blitzed Upper Lake, 61-39, to remain one game out of the North Central League II League lead. The Mustangs jumped to a commanding 23-10 lead in the first quarter on some long range shooting by Michael Awad and Nick Vollert, and were never threatened.

Awad had his corner shot zeroed in to finish with a game-leading 17 points for the Mustangs in a game that got very physical in the first half.

Starting center Will Tarrant added 12 points in addition to swatting away several shots on the inside taken by the shorter Cougars. Justin Fahy continued to be a force off the bench for coach Lance Phillips with 10 points.

It was the sixth consecutive win for the Mustangs who improved to 8-1 in the NCL II and 16-4 overall. St. Vincent remains in the thick of a congested cluster of clubs battling for a placement in the upcoming North Coast Section Division V playoffs. Bentley from Lafayette is the only contender with an undefeated league record (7-0).

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy:
  • This is a family newspaper, please use a kind and respectful tone.
  • No profanity, hate speech or personal attacks. No off-topic remarks.
  • No disinformation about current events.
  • We will remove any comments — or commenters — that do not follow this commenting policy.