Lake City comes up dry
<p>Watching with frustration from the Lake City bench are, from left, Tucker Louie-McGee, Riley Moreen, Kyle Guice and Jacob Dahl druring the final minutes of regulation against Rocky Mountain High School.</p>
<p>Lake City's Justin Pratt looks up from the floor after a scramble that resulted in a jump ball during second half against Rocky Mountain on Thursday.</p>
NAMPA - Whatever state title aspirations Lake City had quickly and stunningly disappeared Thursday afternoon in a sea of turnovers, missed shots and general lackluster play.
The Timberwolves were humbled, 61-33, by Rocky Mountain of Meridian in the first round of the state 5A high school boys basketball tournament at the Idaho Center.
"I was expecting to come down here for a title, so it's definitely a shocker - very disappointing," Lake City senior forward Riley Moreen said. "We didn't show up; we didn't play like we could play. We just didn't play hard."
Lake City (17-6) will play Capital (14-10) of Boise today at 12:15 p.m. PST in a loser-out game. Capital lost to Highland of Pocatello 57-56 on a putback in the closing seconds.
Thursday’s game started bad and got worse. Rocky Mountain overpowered Lake City inside with 6-foot-5 senior post Matt Grooms (15 points, seven rebounds) and 6-6 post Austin Hall (4 points, 8 rebounds), the Grizzlies’ guards drove to the basket with ease, and when they were cut off, Rocky hit five 3-pointers, four by E.J. Boyce, who finished with 14 points.
“That was more than disappointing,” Lake City coach Jim Winger said. “We just didn’t show up. Never loosened up, never gave ourselves a chance. We didn’t even take things out of the huddle out on the floor. We were shook up, and didn’t handle things right from the start to the end. I’ve had a lot of teams down here, and I thought we were ready to go … we just never shook the nerves off; we totally didn’t function — from taking the ball out of bounds to passing … just a total letdown. Very surprising, disappointing — but more surprising.”
Several of Lake City’s turnovers were mind-boggling. The Timberwolves committed six in the first quarter and finished with 18. There were passes that inexplicably bounced off hands of open players. Once, a player was dribbling with no pressure, and somehow the ball drifted away to the defender, who drove for a layup and drew the foul.
Winger said the fact these Lake City players had never been to state before was no excuse.
“We’ve played well all over our neck of the woods, we’ve played against great teams — Rocky Mountain’s no different than what we’ve played all year,” Winger said. “We didn’t play; we didn’t compete. We just flat-out didn’t show up. They were very physical, but we’ve been in physical games all year. We sure made them look like world-beaters.”
Lake City fell behind 6-0, then 20-10, then 26-13, then trailed 30-18 at the half when Boyce hit his third 3 of the game in the closing seconds.
But J.J. Winger sank a 3-pointer nine seconds into the third quarter to pull Lake City within 30-21, and there was some life.
It didn’t last.
Rocky Mountain (20-4) scored the next 19 points to close out the quarter, with guard John Sherle scoring 11 of his 13 points on a personal 11-0 run during that time.
Most of Lake City’s starters watched the final quarter from the bench.
“That was the best we’ve played,” Rocky Mountain coach Dane Roy said. “We went in knowing they were a great team, and they’ve got great bigs, and they have great shooters and good guard play. It was our night, and they missed shots, and it wasn’t their night, and that’s just kinda how it went.
“Our bigs played well; they step up to those challenges. We know Lake City’s bigs were their go-to, and our bigs rose to the challenge tonight.”
Reserve guard Chuckie Adams led Lake City with 8 points. Lake City’s top two scorers, Kyle Guice (12.1 ppg) and Riley Moreen (10.6), finished with 3 and 2 points, respectively. The T-Wolves shot 27 percent (12 of 44) from the field.
Lake City was out-rebounded 37-25.
“I think the nerves got to us, especially in the beginning,” Moreen said. “But there’s no excuse for that in the second half. In the second half, we just didn’t perform.”
Rocky Mountain 15 15 19 12 — 61
Lake City 10 8 3 12 — 33
ROCKY MOUNTAIN — Jones 2, Skurdal 5, Ehle 2, Boyce 14, Bruneel 2, Sherle 13, Pace 0, Nawahine 4, Shepherd 0, Grooms 15, Hall 4. Totals 24-52 8-16 61.
LAKE CITY — Lake 2, Adams 8, Pratt 5, Redal 0, Murphy 0, Hocking 5, Guice 3, Louie-McGee 0, Moreen 2, Dahl 2, Winger 6, Mitchell 0. Totals 12-44 3-3 33.