Boys athlete of the week: Robbie Rowland, Cloverdale, junior, basketball

All five starters on the Cloverdale boys’ basketball team have played together since about second grade. By now, they are a well-choreographed collection of role players. Mitch Delfino and Jordan Gambetta are dangerous 3-point shooters. Casey Berry is a great defender and valuable rebounder. Point guard Beau Gastineau, son of coach John Gastineau, is one of the Empire’s more able dribblers.

And 6-foot-5 forward Robby Rowland? Well, that’s where the defined roles end. Rowland does a little bit of everything.

“He’s so versatile,” John Gastineau said. “He has the ability to handle the ball and distribute. He can face the basket and hit the 3, and he can go inside. We can move him in and out.”

Rowland, one of the best pitchers in the region in baseball, is also the glue that holds the Eagles’ basketball team together. This was never more evident than on Jan.6, when he had 31 points and 14 rebounds against Middletown; on Jan.9, when he had 18 points and nine rebounds in curtailed action against Lower Lake; and on Jan.10, when he had 32 points and 16 rebounds against Eureka.

All three were wins, taking Cloverdale’s record to an impressive 14-2 before Tuesday’s game against Kelseyville.

Rowland, a junior, is in his third year starting for Gastineau. Part of his success is genetic. His father, Rich, spent parts of six seasons with the Detroit Tigers and Boston Red Sox, and older brother Richie was drafted by the Washington Nationals out of high school but chose to play at Santa Rosa JC.

“He’s probably the main reason I push myself so hard, because he pushed me,” Robby said of Richie. “When he was a senior and I was a freshman, we were on the same team. We’d battle, and he’d always win because he was bigger than me. Now I’m a good three inches taller, and I shoot right over him.”

— Phil Barber, The Press Democrat