Post Falls pigs out
<p>JEROME A. POLLOS/Press Lakeland High students hoist their piggish trophy while they celebrate Tuesday after winning the Prairie Pig school spirit competition against Post Falls High.</p>
<p>JEROME A. POLLOS/Press Lakeland High's Aaron Spencer pulls up a shot with the Post Falls High student crowd behind him during the second half of the Prairie Pig game Tuesday in Rathdrum.</p>
<p>JEROME A. POLLOS/Press Lakeland High's Christie Wendle nearly has the ball stolen by Dani Failor from Post Falls as she attempts to make a pass out of the key.</p>
<p>JEROME A. POLLOS/Press Post Falls High's Marcus Colbert attempts to bounce the ball off of Tyrel Derrick from Lakeland High as he leaps over him as he falls out of bounds.</p>
<p>JEROME A. POLLOS/Press Post Falls High's Brooke Litalien tries to keep Darby Murray from Lakeland High away from a loose ball.</p>
RATHDRUM — The Post Falls Trojans may have swept the basketball games, but host Lakeland High brought home the bacon in front of an estimated crowd of 1,600 in the annual Prairie Pig spirit games Tuesday at Hawk Court.
Post Falls (13-2) senior Michael Hillman scored 15 points as the second-ranked 5A Trojans beat the 4A Hawks 45-36 in a nonleague game. It was the 11th straight win for the Trojan boys in the Pig games against the Hawks.
“This is one of the biggest games we look forward to all season,” Hillman said. “Not just the game, but the environment. Usually the one that calms down first wins.”
Lakeland (3-12), which trailed 36-30 entering the fourth quarter, went into a stall on offense for the first four minutes of the quarter.
“The theory is that if we’ve got the ball, they don’t,” Lakeland coach Dave Stockwell said. “But we just need to score a little more on a consistent basis.”
In the girls game, the Post Falls Trojans (10-8) opened the game on a 15-0 run and cruised to a 69-39 win over the Hawks (9-9).
“I told the girls before the game to take advantage of the environment,” Post Falls coach Marc Allert said. “I thought they did a great job of it.”
At the conclusion of the night, Lakeland was awarded the Pig for the 10th time in 16 matchups.
Boys: In the deciding quarter, neither team made a field goal, instead relying on the free throw for offense.
“A lot of that had to do with the way Lakeland was playing defense,” Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. “We shot really poorly tonight, but I thought our defense was good. At moments, I thought we had some good possessions.”
Marcus Colbert scored a game-high 16 points for Post Falls, which made 8 of 9 free-throw attempts in the final quarter.
“It’s extremely hard to hear at one minute, then it goes to silence,” McLean said. “It’s a great environment to play in.”
Lakeland senior Eric Cooper led the Hawks with 13 points, and he also had five rebounds.
“The last couple of weeks, we’ve made great strides,” said Stockwell, who coached the Post Falls boys for seven seasons (2000-07). “From Day 1 to right now, I couldn’t be prouder of this group. Post Falls has a lot of talent and experience. I’m sure they thought they’d run it to us.”
Lakeland travels to West Valley tonight at 5:45.
“I think we’re three quarters to our total potential,” Stockwell said. “If we’re peaking at the end of the season, we’re doing something right. Those games against Coeur d’Alene and Post Falls just gives us more confidence moving forward.”
Post Falls 11 13 13 8 — 45
Lakeland 12 8 10 6 — 36
POST FALLS — Davenport 0, Anderson 0, Valente 0, Thoreson 14, Jackson 0, Colbert 16, Benner 0, Hillman 15, Koski 0, Shelton 0.
LAKELAND — Spencer 0, Carr 4, Derrick 6, Black 5, Horne 2, Cooper 13, Bayley 7.
Girls: Danielle Failor scored a game-high 14 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for Post Falls (10-8), which concludes the regular season at Moscow on Saturday.
“Knowing the entire student section was cheering their hardest, it just makes me want to play even harder for them,” Failor said.
It marked the Trojans’ seventh straight win in Pig games.
“Any win like this one gives us confidence,” Failor said. “It really helps us. If you’ve got a positive mindset, it just makes it more possible.”
Rai Franklin added 11 points and Katie King nine points for Post Falls.
“It was a little tough to communicate tonight,” Allert said. “Lakeland switches their defenses a lot, but Katie did a good job of getting us where we needed to be.”
Post Falls could wind up the third or fourth seed in the 5A Region 1 tournament depending on the outcome of Friday’s Coeur d’Alene-Lake City game and next Tuesday’s Lake City-Lewiston game.
“We’ve made a lot of progress this year,” Allert said. “We’ve still got to work on the little things, but we’re starting to get contributions from others that is really helping our depth.”
Josie Coder and Cieana Close had nine points apiece for Lakeland (9-9), which travels to West Valley tonight at 7:30.
“I thought we played nervous tonight,” Lakeland coach Steve Seymour said. “We had a handful of kids that were playing their third Prairie Pig game. To lose the opening tip was indicative of how the rest of the night went.”
Post Falls held Lakeland to 18 rebounds as a team.
“Post Falls competed well,” Seymour said. “We did at times, but not to the extent of Post Falls.”
Lakeland opens the 4A Region 1 tournament next week against Sandpoint.
“We’re going to find out how good we are real soon,” Seymour said. “They just killed us on the boards tonight.”
Post Falls 19 21 14 15 — 69
Lakeland 12 10 9 8 — 39
POST FALLS — J. Waller 5, Gonzales 2, King 9, Franklin 11, Smith 3, Litalien 6, Allert 0, Runkle 5, Failor 14, Perrin 8, Meehan 4, M. Waller 0.
LAKELAND — Tapplin 2, Murray 4, Bayley 2, Ward 0, Coder 9, Wendle 4, Duffey 6, Close 9, Jewell 0, Derby 4.