Trojans play hard and smart
COEUR d'ALENE - They'd like to run up and down the floor and score a lot of points, but the Post Falls Trojans showed they can win in a half-court game as well.
Trailing by one point after three quarters, top-ranked Post Falls outscored Coeur d'Alene 14-2 to begin the fourth quarter and held off the Vikings for a 55-48 victory in 5A Inland Empire League boys basketball play Friday night at Elmer Jordan Court.
At the midway point of league play, Post Falls (11-2, 2-1) is tied for first with Lake City (11-3, 2-1), which beat Lewiston (7-6, 1-2) on Friday night. Coeur d'Alene is 8-5, 1-2.
"Our goal from Day 1 is to be league champion, and to be a league champion this year you're going to have to get, I think, at least two road wins," Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. "I thought Coeur d'Alene did a good job of slowing us down with solid defense - no gimmicks. ... Coeur d'Alene just beat us up; they just challenged us man to man, and that did slow us down a little bit."
Earlier Friday, the third-ranked Coeur d'Alene girls (12-4, 3-2 5A IEL) held Post Falls (6-9, 0-5) to three points in the second half of a 55-20 victory, played under a running clock for the last 6 minutes after the Vikings went up by 30 points.
Post Falls 55, Coeur d'Alene 48: Post Falls came into the game averaging 73.8 points per game, and hadn't scored fewer than 64 points in a game.
Things got a little testy late in the third quarter, after Chad Chalich of Coeur d'Alene dove to the floor to grab a loose ball near midcourt. Damon Gonzales of Post Falls dove and tied him up for a jump ball.
Tempers flared briefly, and players from both sides converged. Words were exchanged, but nothing much else happened. Starters Marcus Colbert of Post Falls and Jake Matheson of Coeur d’Alene, who were waiting at the scorer’s table a few feet away to check in, stepped in to help keep things under control. Post Falls reserve Scott Benner, who had not played in the game, was given a technical foul and ejected for leaving the bench and coming onto the floor. Coeur d’Alene, leading 32-31 at the time, missed both technical free throws with 1:08 left in the quarter, and there was no further scoring in the quarter.
The Vikings, trailing 26-19 at halftime, opened the third quarter on a 13-2 run to take a 32-28 lead.
Colbert’s driving layin and free throw one minute into the fourth quarter gave Post Falls a 36-32 lead. Another 3-point play by Colbert with 3:38 left hiked the Trojans’ lead to 43-34.
Matheson, who led Coeur d’Alene with 17 points, hit two 3-pointers in the final minute, the second bringing the Vikings within 53-48 with 25 seconds left.
“That (incident late in the third quarter) fired us up,” said Colbert, who scored seven of his 16 points in the fourth quarter. “That sparked us, and got us going.”
Lickfold had eight rebounds for Post Falls, which went 19 of 44 from the field, 14 of 23 from the line.
“We were playing hard, but we weren’t playing real smart in the third quarter,” said McLean, who praised the defense of Gonzales, Lickfold, Luke Thoreson and Michael Hillman. “In the fourth quarter, what I kept preaching, we’re playing hard, now let’s play smart.”
Deon Watson had 10 points and seven rebounds for Coeur d’Alene, which went 18 of 49 from the field, 9 of 17 from the line.
“The first four minutes of the fourth quarter we had five or six shots that we couldn’t score ... for a four-minute stretch we came up empty,” Coeur d’Alene coach Kent Leiss said. “Our defense was outstanding — we just need to do a better job scoring.”
Post Falls plays at Mt. Spokane today at 4:30. Coeur d’Alene faces Eisenhower of Yakima on Monday in the SunDome Showdown in Yakima.
Post Falls 13 13 5 24 — 55
Coeur d’Alene 11 8 13 16 — 48
POST FALLS — English 2, Gonzales 0, Hill 14, Anderson 3, Thoreson 6, Colbert 16, Hillman 5, Lickfold 9.
COEUR d’ALENE — Tackett 0, Matheson 17, Chalich 6, Roletto 0, Loy 0, Higbie 7, Baracco 8, Watson 10.
Coeur d’Alene 55, Post Falls 20: The Vikings led 14-9 after one quarter, then held the Trojans to two baskets — one with three minutes left in the half, the second just one minute into the third quarter.
“If they’re in good shape and they play hard, and they play good defense, it makes the other team a little bit frustrated, it makes a big difference,” Coeur d’Alene coach Dale Poffenroth said. “We just played a straight man to man ... sometimes it’s how hard you want to make it happen.”
Carli Rosenthal finished with 18 points, 12 rebounds and five assists for Coeur d’Alene. Caelyn Orlandi had four assists, Kendalyn Brainard six boards.
Josie Tennison scored six points for Post Falls, which shot 6 of 32 from the floor and committed 15 turnovers.
“The physicality of the game was not to our advantage,” said Post Falls coach Chris Johnson, whose team was coming off a three-point loss to Lake City on Thursday. “The only good part of this is, we play again tomorrow afternoon, so we hopefully get this bad taste out of our mouths and move on.”
Post Falls plays at Mt. Spokane today at 2:45. Coeur d’Alene faces Prosser (Wash.) on Monday in the SunDome Showdown in Yakima.
Post Falls 9 8 2 1 — 20
Coeur d’Alene 14 17 17 7 — 55
POST FALLS — Tennison 6, King 5, Davenport 2, Litalien 2, Clancy 0, Scott 0, Perron 0, Burgess 0, Failor 2, Smith 3.
COEUR d’ALENE — Baughman 6, Sumner 2, Orlandi 9, C. Williams 0, K. Parker 2, Legel 6, Petit 4, Rosenthal 18, S. Parker 0, Brainard 8, S. Williams 0.