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Clear Lake Overpowers Deer Park

Posted by Donald Wilkerson on Dec 08 2003 at 04:00PM PST
The Clear Lake Falcons met the Deer Park Deer for the second time in 75 hours tonight in the Lake gym. Fresh from an overtime defeat in their last game by the Deer on Saturday afternoon in the 71st annual CCISD tournament at Clear Creek, the Falcons had something to prove. And prove it they did. Who knows what Coach McDonald had told his team in preparation for tonight's game? Who knows what they had told each other? One thing was clear though. They would not be denied. They were prepared, relaxed and ready for the contest. With the precision of a team worthy of being state ranked, the Falcons demonstrated their prowess on both ends of the court. They picked apart the weaknesses of their opponent with superior play. They played with the poise and confidence that indicates considerable growth as a team since the start of the season. You could see it in their eyes, they wanted it bad. It was pretty to watch. The game started out with Lake taking the lead early and maintaining it. The Falcons outscored the Deer 24-12 in the second quarter. By half time it was Lake up by 17, 39-22. Deer Park's strategy was to neutralize the big man Connor Atchley by double teaming him all night. Why not? They had double and triple teamed him Saturday and it worked. Only this time, Lake anticipated it and Atchley quickly dished off the ball at will. Lake's guards and forwards were not outshone like last time either. On Saturday, Deer Park had two players who combined for 45 points. Tonight the combined total for the same two players was 16 points. That was largely because all the Falcons played very, very hard (Lake had 14 steals). Dennis Cerny was like a Tasmanian devil, all over the court doing whatever needed to be done. His head was in the game. He was focused and determined the entire match as were all the Lake players. You could see it in their eyes. If there had been a game MVP, my vote would have to go to Dennis though. Scott Oswald was relaxed and having fun too. He should have been. He was knocking down 3's like it was a scrimmage with Chavez. Scott led his team with 15 points. Aaron Greenwood added another 12 points. Chris Mitchell had 6 rebounds. Ryan Bright (13 points), Deer Park's not so secret weapon, was more a glimmer than a shining star. He seemed as if he might be recovering from a flu bug or something. Perhaps it is best explained by Lake's tenacity on defense though. The cunning Coach Carlisle could see the handwriting on the wall early in the second half. His reserves started playing more, he capitulated without appearing to, and he started plotting his strategy against Lake in the play-offs. Bright, largely ineffective, didn't play much in the second half and Lake opened up their lead to as much as 31 points by dominating at all positions. The fourth quarter was mostly a stampede of scoring by the reserves. With impressive outside shooting by Deer Park late in the game, they were able to pull to a 20 point difference, but the final score of 76-56 does not indicate how one-sided the game really was. Without the luxury of being as familiar with what to expect from the players and the coach, Clear Lake will have to put good games back to back if they hope to prevail over North Shore next Tuesday at home.

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