5A REGION 1 GIRLS BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: Something to yell about
<p>Brittany Tackett shouts and jumps in the air as the Coeur d’Alene High School girls are presented with the 5A region 1 championship trophy Wednesday after the team defeated Lewiston.</p>
COEUR d’ALENE — Where there’s a Will — there was a way for the Coeur d’Alene Vikings on Wednesday night.
Senior post Sydney Williams scored 10 of her 16 points in the second half, including eight straight in the third quarter as the top-seeded Vikings beat the second-seeded Lewiston Bengals 44-39 in the 5A Region 1 tournament championship game at Elmer Jordan Court to advance to next week’s state tournament.
“It was a knock-down, drag-out game,” Coeur d’Alene coach Dale Poffenroth said. “They certainly came out and played well. The referees called it pretty physical, which is OK for both teams, because they’re able to handle it. Some teams can’t, but it was a fair, balanced game. Things went pretty good.”
Williams hit a 3-pointer to pull the Vikings to within a 26-24 deficit early in the third quarter, then scored eight straight to give her team a lead they didn’t lose again.
“I just went out and did what I normally do,” Williams said. “We were just trying to get it inside to Britt (Brittany Tackett) and get her to score and get our offense going.”
Coeur d’Alene (20-2) will play next Thursday at 12:15 p.m,. PST at the Idaho Center in Nampa vs. the runner-up in the District 5-6 tournament between Hillcrest (20-3) and Highland (17-3), who will play for their district title tonight in Pocatello.
“We’re excited that our seniors have a chance to get one (a regional title) for ourselves,” Coeur d’Alene forward Brittany Tackett said. “Last year, Goose (Caelyn Orlandi) and Kendalyn (Brainard) were a big part of our team, but we earned this one for ourselves.”
The teams had split two regular season matchups, with each winning on the other’s home floor. Lewiston won at Coeur d’Alene 49-46 on Dec. 17 and Coeur d’Alene won at Lewiston 47-27 on Jan. 24.
“When we played at Lewiston, we tended to pass the ball to the Coeur d’Alene kids a lot,” Lewiston coach Pat Teichmer said. “They got a lot of transition lay-ins and started to feel good about themselves. Coeur d’Alene forces you to make mistakes and I thought we did a better job with the ball this time.”
It is Coeur d’Alene’s second regional title in three years.
Lewiston led 23-21 at halftime, but were held to 13 points in the second half.
“We had kids that were doing things that they’re not supposed to do,” Poffenroth said. “We were getting out of character. I just told them at halftime to get back to doing the things in practice that they normally do and get where you’re supposed to be. If you do the stuff we’ve been talking about all season, it will work.”
Lewiston (19-3) will host Lake City (11-11) in the regional second-place game, with that winner advancing to state.
“Coeur d’Alene is a damn good team and it wouldn’t shock me at all if they were playing for it all next week,” Teichmer said. “I thought defensively, both teams played great. They’re a little faster than we are and they played the passing lanes a little better than we did. We tried to defend as best we could, and I thought we did a good job to hold a very good Coeur d’Alene team to 44 points on their home floor.”
Emilee Schlader had 11 points and Lynzee Wilson had 10 points for Lewiston.
Lewiston 8 15 7 9 — 39
Coeur d’Alene 10 11 12 11 — 44
LEWISTON — H. Weeks 2, B. Weeks 0, Wilson 10, Lohman 3, Schlader 11, Moscrip 0, Wells 7, White 6, Hastings 0.
COEUR d’ALENE — Parker 2, Sumner 1, Chalich 12, Tackett 13, Matheson 0, Williams 16.