St. Maries advances to semifinals

WENDELL — Sophomore Mariah Gladden had 18 kills, four aces and two blocks as the St. Maries Lumberjacks advanced to the semifinals of the state 3A tournament with a 25-18, 25-16, 23-25, 25-10 first-round win over the Bear Lake Bears at Wendell High on Friday.

“I thought we played well,” St. Maries coach Missy Asbury said. “Bear Lake is a good team. We started kind of slow, but began to pick it up. Mariah had a really good game, with a lot of good hits from the 10-foot line. Our intensity level was on late, but there were still some nerves from playing in the state tournament. We didn’t start as strong as we’d like, but we played well.”

“At the beginning of the day, I was kind of nervous,” Gladden said. “After the first set, I got into the flow after that and was able to play well.”

St. Maries (25-5) faces Fruitland (30-9) in a semifinal today at noon PDT. Snake River faces South Fremont in the other semifinal matchup.

“Fruitland looks pretty tough,” Asbury said. “Both Snake River and Fruitland look tough ... everyone looks about equal to me.”

Jaylee Sines had 41 assists, Tia Asbury 16 digs and Marlee Masterson 16 kills and 16 digs for St. Maries, which only had to play once with the win due to the change in tournament format from double-elimination to single-elimination with a consolation bracket.

“It’s kind of strange,” Asbury said of the layover. “We’ve got a lot of free time between matches. I don’t really care for it much. Then again, we don’t play until the afternoon tomorrow.”

Post Falls: Post Falls opened with a 25-23, 25-23, 18-25, 25-23 loss to Boise, but rebounded with a 25-15, 25-23, 25-21 win over Eagle on the first day of the state 5A tournament at Twin Falls.

The Trojans (27-7) face Lewiston today at 8 a.m. PDT in the consolation championship game.

“We’re a fairly young, inexperienced team and it seemed jitters held us back this morning,” Post Falls coach Willow Hanna said. “We blocked well, but we couldn’t get in a rhythm.

Allison Meehan had 11 kills, Ashley Jibby 17 digs and Tori Bertsch five blocks and two aces for the Trojans in the loss to Boise, which boasted 10 seniors on its roster.

In the win over Eagle, Jibby had eight kills and three aces, Bertsch 10 assists, Brooke Litalien eight digs and Sierra Monti added six blocks to finish with 11 on the day.

“Against Eagle, we controlled our half of the court the way we needed to,” Hanna said. “The girls settled in and started playing ball, which was nice to see. We have some work to do tomorrow and hopefully we play well.”

Timberlake: The Tigers battled back to advance to the state 3A tournament consolation championship game against Bear Lake today at 8 a.m. PDT at Wendell High.

Brooke Murray had 26 assists, 10 digs, three kills and four aces for Timberlake (21-9) in a 25-15, 25-23, 11-25, 18-25, 15-9 win over Parma in a loser-out match.

In earlier action, Kelly Madsen had six digs and eight kills as Snake River defeated Timberlake 25-17, 25-14, 25-16.

“Snake River was a good team when we played them,” Timberlake coach Michelle Garwood said. “We didn’t play well and couldn’t pass through their defense. I don’t know what happened against Parma. We were a different team in the first two sets compared to the final three sets to win the match. I thought they did well to fight through that.”

Lakeside: The Knights went 0-2 as they were eliminated from the state 1A Division I tournament at Declo High.

Challis defeated Lakeside 25-18, 25-19, 25-11 in the opening round.

Joelle Miller had seven kills, Jennifer Mitchell 15 assists and six blocks for Lakeside.

Horseshoe Bend eliminated Lakeside later on Friday 8-25, 25-19, 25-19, 25-22, ending the Knights’ season at 12-3.

Miller had 14 kills, Mitchell had nine blocks, 24 assists and three aces for Lakeside.

“We came out really good against Horseshoe Bend,” Lakeside coach Jan Mitchell said. “The first game was too easy and we were right in the other matches, but just didn’t pull it off. We’re going to teach this younger group of players how to get to state and win some matches down here.”