Coeur d'Alene cruises past Capital in semis
NAMPA — It’s tough to beat a team three times in a row.
Tonight — the Coeur d’Alene Viking girls basketball team will get a chance to prove just how tough it really is.
Sydney Williams had 22 points and 10 rebounds and Madison Sumner added 12 points and six rebounds as the second-ranked Vikings beat the Capital Eagles of Boise High 55-39 in the state 5A semifinals on Friday night at the Idaho Center.
Coeur d’Alene (21-5) will face Post Falls (23-1) in the state 5A championship game tonight at 7 p.m. PST. It will be the seventh trip to the title game in eight years for Coeur d’Alene — which won three straight titles from 2008 to 2010. For the seventh straight year, an Inland Empire League team will win the state 5A title.
“It’s kind of crazy we’ve got to travel 500 miles to play a team that’s just down the street,” Williams said. “We’re pumped and ready to bring everything we’ve got.”
Post Falls has won the last two games between the two — including the Region 1 tournament championship game 55-45 in Post Falls last week.
“I just feel like we’ve got no more practice, no more games between now and then, so we might as well just go out and play as hard as we can,” Sumner said. “Kendalyn (Brainard) said that she’d break her ankle for us if it meant winning that game.”
Williams scored 18 of her 22 points in the first half as the Vikings took a 34-18 halftime lead.
“She had a good first half and decided not to shoot in the second half I guess,” Coeur d’Alene coach Dale Poffenroth said. “When you’re shooting well, why not just keep shooting?”
Williams, a 6-foot-2 junior post, was 3 of 4 from beyond the 3-point line.
“I was definitely not expecting to do that,” Williams said. “They were taking a while to get out to me, so I was getting out in my pocket and just following through and hitting shots. We were playing really well and getting the ball in places we weren’t expecting to and making some shots that were a really high percentage.”
Of the fourth and final matchup against Post Falls this season, Poffenroth noted his team is in unfamiliar territory — the underdog.
“We’ve been playing well and they’ve got a great program,” Poffenroth said. “The first time we beat them, we snuck up on them and they weren’t really expecting us to. We lost to them in OT and in the regional title game (in Post Falls) — so hopefully it’s our turn now. But we’ve got to have an answer for Dani Failor. She’s playing tremendous right now, and so is Brooke (Litalien). Brooke is playing the best she’s played all year.”
Liz Landreth — who has signed with Utah State — scored 12 points for Capital (17-8), which faces Highland (20-3) in the third-place game today at Columbia High in Nampa.
“Coeur d’Alene had such a good inside-outside game that we thought our zone would work,” Capital coach Blas Telleria said. “They didn’t shoot it like that last night, so we thought it would give us a better angle on defense. They didn’t shoot free throws as well either, but they sure as hell shot 3-pointers pretty well.”
Caelyn Orlandi scored 12 points for Coeur d’Alene, which finished 6 of 9 from beyond the 3-point line.
Coeur d’Alene 18 16 13 8 — 55
Capital 11 7 9 12 — 39
COEUR d’ALENE — Parker 3, Sumner 11, Chalich 0, Orlandi 12, Callahan 0, Tackett 7, Matheson 0, Brainard 0, Wellsandt 0, Williams 22. Totals 19-40 11-20 55.
CAPITAL — Center 2 Cacchillo 1, Neumeyer 4, Sauer 0, Blair 3, Stephens 8, Johnson 0, Landreth 12, Eckhart 3, Jacobsen 0, White 6. Totals 17-48 4-13 39.