Cd'A, Lake City to play for title

COEUR d'ALENE - As a varsity assistant for most of the season for the Coeur d'Alene High boys basketball team, Darren Taylor was charged with putting in a zone defense - in case the Vikings needed it someday.

Friday turned out to be that day.

No. 3 seed Coeur d'Alene switched to a 2-3 zone late in the third quarter and eventually pulled away from No. 2 Lewiston for a 59-41 victory in the first round of the 5A Region 1 tournament at Lake City High.

“I just thought we had better energy in the second half,” said Taylor, who became the interim head coach two weeks ago. “Every loose ball, we were getting our hands on them. And then when we switched to a 2-3 zone, it seemed to stifle them a little bit — they had some trouble getting off a good shot.”

Coeur d’Alene (13-8) will play at top-seeded Lake City (16-5) on Tuesday at 7 p.m. in the championship game. The Timberwolves downed No. 4 seed Post Falls 53-36 in the late game Friday night.

“Emotionally, I think it was a great game for us,” Lake City coach Jim Winger said. “But statistically, and execution-wise, I wasn’t overly thrilled with how we played, especially offensively. I think we rushed a lot of things — first half in particular ... but I do think in the second half we played a lot better defense with a lot more energy, and the finish was good.”

Post Falls (8-13) travels to Lewiston (6-15) on Tuesday at 7 in a loser-out game.

Coeur d’Alene 59, Lewiston 41: Lewiston led 29-24 when Coeur d’Alene called timeout with 3:06 left in the third quarter. Shortly thereafter, the Vikings switched from man-to-man to zone — and Lewiston scored only 12 points in the final 11 minutes of the game.

“We set up at halftime to run that 2-3 zone — I didn’t know when we were going to spring it,” Taylor said. “When we put that on them, it seemed to be the big difference.”

“I’m actually really surprised” the zone worked as well as it did, said Coeur d’Alene sophomore point guard Ryan Walde, who finished with 17 points. “Last time when we went down to Lewiston we put in the 2-3 — that was the first time we had ever run it — and it didn’t work very well.”

Justin Carpenter added 10 points for Coeur d’Alene, which had played “not much” zone, Taylor said, prior to Friday night. Tony Naccarato had nine points and six rebounds, and junior wing Alajah Tripp was in the middle of things, grabbing 10 rebounds.

“Kelton Hunter played really well in the middle,” Taylor said. “Just took up space, pushed their big guy around. (Sam) Heitzman was a factor in the first half, then he kinda disappeared when Kelton was pushing him around in the middle of the zone. Alajah Tripp seemed to be everywhere — his energy spurred us on. Our point guard (Walde) is awesome, he just runs the show, gets his hands on balls, gets us into the right stuff and gets the ball to the right people. I thought he did a good job as a floor leader tonight.”

Rafa Hewett-Steiger, Lewiston’s lefty-shooting senior guard, scored 17 points — but only three came after halftime. Heitzman added 10 points and eight boards.

“It’s kind of been in our back pocket,” Taylor said of the zone. “I guess the surprise factor worked well tonight. We probably won’t have the surprise factor on Tuesday.”

Lewiston won its final three games in 5A Inland Empire League play to snatch the No. 2 seed, but was slowed by 20 turnovers against the Vikings on Friday night. The Bengals led by as many as six points in the first half.

Coeur d’Alene 7 15 13 24 — 59

Lewiston 11 13 9 8 — 41

COEUR d’ALENE — Paulsen 0, Walde 17, Tripp 8, Daniels 7, Carpenter 10, Naccarato 9, Moore 0, Hancock 0, Kluss 2, Hunter 6.

LEWISTON — Charlo 0, Hasenoehrl 1, Rayner 0, Jackson 2, Heitzman 10, Dickeson 0, Hewett-Steiger 17, Melton 1, Brooks 10, Boyer 0.

Lake City 53, Post Falls 36: Juniors Justin Pratt and J.J. Winger each scored 12 points to lead the Timberwolves to their third win over the Trojans in three meetings.

Winger sank 3 of 3 3-pointers in the first half and finished with four 3s.

“I thought Justin got us into our stuff pretty easily,” Winger said. “I didn’t make a shot vs. Post Falls the last game, so they kinda sagged off a little bit, and I made a couple in the first half and got going.

“But to my liking, I thought I didn’t shoot that well,” added Winger, who finished 4 for 8 from behind the arc. “I’m a better shooter than that; I probably should have made a couple more.”

Drew Hocking hit a pair of 3s and finished with nine points for Lake City. Posts Riley Moreen and Kyle Guice scored just six and four points, respectively, but Moreen had 10 rebounds and Guice blocked five shots.

“Drew and J have been shooting the ball really well lately,” Jim Winger said. “We’re at our best when we’re moving the ball from one side of the floor to the other, and the ball’s got to touch inside. But on the same hand, too, Post Falls did a good job taking that (inside game) away; they were really on Kyle and Riley. There wasn’t anything that came to them easy. So you’re going to have to step it up on the outside when they do that, and we did.”

JJ Winger’s first 3-pointer started an 8-0 run to open the game. Post Falls answered with a 10-0 run, but Winger hit another 3 in a 13-1 spurt and kept the Trojans at arm’s length the rest of the way.

Reece Jackson and Dalton Thompson led Post Falls with nine points each. Corey Koski had six points and 10 rebounds for the Trojans, who were slowed by 30 percent shooting from the field (13 of 43) and 41.7 percent shooting from the free-throw line (5 of 12).

Post Falls 11 9 7 9 — 36

Lake City 14 14 12 13 — 53

POST FALLS — Hall 0, McKeown 0, Davenport 2, Pfennigs 0, Jackson 9, Hillman 8, Mueller 0, McCullough 2, Thompson 9, Corr 0, Koski 6.

LAKE CITY — Adams 4, Pratt 12, Hocking 9, Guice 4, Louie-McGee 2, Moreen 6, Dahl 4, Winger 12.