Guice, Lake City on a roll
<p>Lake City High's Justin Pratt is swarmed by his classmates after the Timberwolves defeated Coeur d'Alene High in the 5A Region 1 tournament championship game Tuesday with a final of 58-33.</p>
<p>Riley Moreen from Lake City High comes up from behind to disrupt Coeur d'Alene High's Alajah Tripp's break to the basket during the first half.</p>
COEUR d’ALENE — Kyle Guice shot the ball well Tuesday night, and he and his Lake City teammates came out strong and never let up.
Not a bad recipe to take down to Nampa for the state 5A tournament next week.
Guice tossed in 26 points on 12-of-17 shooting, and the host Timberwolves scored the game’s first 14 points and went on to rout the Coeur d’Alene Vikings 58-33 in the Region 1 championship game before an estimated 1,500 fans.
“My shot was just feeling good tonight,” Guice said. “My teammates were getting me in a good position to score the ball ... the last couple of games my teammates have been shooting the ball more, and they’ve been hitting shots that they’ve needed to to get them going. It was just my game tonight.”
Lake City will play in the first game at state, at 12:15 p.m. PST at the Idaho Center on Feb. 28. The Timberwolves will play the loser of Friday’s District 3 championship game between Borah (21-1) of Boise and Rocky Mountain (19-3) of Meridian.
Coeur d’Alene (13-9) will play host to Post Falls (9-13) on Thursday at 7 p.m. in a loser-out game. The winner will play the fifth-place team from District 3 on Saturday at 3 p.m. in Grangeville in a state play-in game.
Post Falls eliminated Lewiston (6-16) with a 52-36 win at Lewiston on Tuesday.
Most of the left-handed Guice’s points came on jumpers from a variety of spots on the floor. He also grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked four shots.
“When he’s angry and possessed, he’s as good as they get,” Lake City coach Jim Winger said. “He was loaded for bear, and it was over. When he gets like that, he just dominates.”
Lake City junior JJ Winger shot the 3 well for the second straight regional tournament game. Winger hit 3 of 3 3-pointers in the first quarter as the T-Wolves built a 19-1 lead after one quarter. Lake City built its biggest first-half lead at 30-7 on a 3 by Winger, before the T-Wolves settled for a 32-12 halftime lead.
Winger finished with four 3s and 12 points. Riley Moreen chipped in 10 points, nine rebounds, five assists and a couple blocked shots.
“I thought we were ready,” Jim Winger said. “This team’s body language, they give it away to you, if they’re ready or not. In the warmup, you can tell. We were going through the motions and starting games flat, so we actually practiced for warmup ... what can you say about tonight? We just played awesome.”
Lake City won its first regional title since 2010 — the last time the Timberwolves advanced to state.
“We just came out with a lot of energy,” Guice said. “We knew it was a big game; (this group of) teammates had never been to state before. We just wanted to get there.”
Coeur d’Alene went nearly 7 minutes before scoring its first point and more than 9 minutes before its first basket. That was by Ryan Walde, the Vikings’ sophomore point guard, who scored 9 of Coeur d’Alene’s 12 first-half points.
“They had a good plan there at the beginning; they changed a lot of stuff they do,” Coeur d’Alene interim head coach Darren Taylor said. “They weren’t switching their screens, and we thought we’d get some mismatches. That was a good little gameplan by coach Winger at the beginning there, and that got us off to a slow start. I thought we played hard in the second half, but it was too far to come back.”
Winger said the T-Wolves didn’t change anything defensively — he said they switched screens like they always do. But whatever was going on out there, the Vikings were befuddled. They were 0 for 11 from the field in the first quarter, 5 for 22 for the half.
“We just could not keep them off the glass,” Taylor said. “Their offensive rebounds were an astonishing amount. That’s going to get you in a hole no matter who you’re playing — not to mention against one of the best teams around.”
Taylor said the Vikings will flush this loss away quickly, and are happy the next game is at home, rather than at Lewiston like it would have been if the Bengals had beaten Post Falls on Tuesday night.
“It happens,” Taylor said of the one-sided loss. “Sometimes in big games, it gets out of control and you can’t reign it back in.”
Coeur d’Alene 1 11 7 14 — 33
Lake City 19 13 14 12 — 58
COEUR d’ALENE — Paulsen 0, Walde 10, Tripp 2, Daniels 2, Carpenter 2, Naccarato 5, Moore 4, Hancock 4, Kluss 2, Hunter 4.
LAKE CITY — Lake 0, Adams 0, Pratt 0, Redal 0, Murphy 2, Hocking 2, Guice 26, Louie-McGee 2, Moreen 10, Dahl 4, Winger 12.