Physical Lassen trips up Eagles

By Reggie Stiteler
Published: Wednesday, February 6, 2008 4:55 PM CST
Mt. Shasta News

Siskiyous freshman Alden Gibbs needs to get creative on this drive to hoop against Lassen Monday night in Weed. The Eagles played tough, but Lassen kept them pinned defeating Siskiyous 86-77.

With six players standing at least 6'5”, the Lassen Cougars played physical basketball in defeating the Siskiyous men 86-77 Monday night in Weed.

The GVC rivals battled to a near even first half, 38-37, advantage Lassen, but the Cougars (14-11, 4-1 GVC) built enough of a second half cushion to contain the Eagles down the stretch.

The Siskiyous (9-15, 3-2), despite having five players score in double figures, could not mount a steady run to overcome the Susanville squad in the second half.

Alden Gibbs paced the Eagles with 17 points, Demario Ballard added 15 and Roland Johnson netted 14.

Lassen opened the second half with a 17-5 run to go up 55-42.

Three consecutive, successful feeds to Ballard in the post cut the visitor's lead to six, but the closest the Eagles could claw back to in the game was within five at 67-62 on a Jeffrey Williams trey with about five minutes left to play.

Siskiyous continued to hang around, even forcing back-to-back Lassen shot clock violations, but a surge was not in the cards for the Eagles as they suffered just their second conference defeat of the season.

Lassen sophomore guard Jordan Stokes led the Cougars with 30 points.

Sophomore forward Tyson Berry and freshman point guard Drew Herrera each chipped in ten points for the Eagles.

The Eagles shot just 9 of 20 from the foul line, missing some critical second half freebies.

Siskiyous hit six three-point shots on the evening.

Eagle three-point threat Kellen Chewning did not play due to an ankle injury, but was getting around without crutches Monday.

Today the Siskiyous hit the road to Oroville where they begin the second half of the GVC schedule in a rematch with Butte College (13-8, 1-4).