Feb. 12, 2010
Mendez' Big Scoring Binge Leads Gilmore
The Weimar Hills boys 8th grade basketball team strolled into Lyman Gilmore's "Bomber Box" gym Thursday afternoon with the Nevada County Athletic League's regular season championship already secured.
But someone forgot to tell Gilmore's Jericho Mendez and his fellow Bomber teammates to roll over and play dead.
Led by Mendez' season high 27-point scoring spree, the Bombers knocked off the league champion Warriors, 62-46.
Weimar Hills finishes its NCAL regular season with a record of 10-2 and will take a mark of 19-4 and the league's No. 1 seed with it into the NCAL tournament which tips off at school sites on Wednesday and then continues Thursday and Saturday at Nevada Union High School.
Gilmore, meanwhile, improved to 6-4 and has cinched the NCAL's No. 4 playoff berth. Seven Hills (8-3) , which finishes its league season Tuesday at Union Hill, needs a win to grab the No. 2 spot. Magnolia, finished at 8-4, will be the No. 3 seed.
Final tournament match-ups and game times will be announced Tuesday evening following a NCAL coach's meeting.
Mendez scored 16 of his 27 markers in the first half when the Bombers took a 23-19 lead into the locker room at intermission. Gilmore still led 43-35 at the end of three quarters before Jess Sutton tallied seven of his game total 10 points in the final stanza.
For Weimar Hills, which was playing its sixth game in seven days after taking third place at the Pomolita Classic in Ukiah, the Warriors were led by 17 points from Carrick Hoffart and 13 from Pat Beninga. Mason Lewis added six points while Marcus Jackson and John Kirwan added four apiece.
Seven Hills 37 Pleasant Valley 27 at Lake Wildwood - Seven Hills broke open a close game in the second quarter with tough defense that only allowed the home team 2 points.
After being up by a score of 14 to 9 after one quarter, Seven Hills took a 25 to 11 lead into the half. But the Vikings wouldn't go away. They slowly crept back into the game behind the hot shooting of Chris who hit 7 of his team high 11 points in the second half.
The Vikings cut the lead to just 6 when Raider forward Ben Beltran grabbed a key rebound and scored 2 of his 7 points to give the Raiders some breathing room. Matt Damele calmly sank two free throws to seal the win. Center Steven Skaggs led all scoters with 12, Max Bishop added 8 points, and Trevor Humpherys and Beltran chipped in with 7. The Vikings got 11 from Chris, 6 from Ben, and 5 from Donavan.