Guice, Vetsch, Mitchell lead Lake City past Post Falls: Timberwolves play Cd'A on Wednesday for regional title in 5A Region 1 boys basketball tournament

COEUR d'ALENE - Even though Lake City post Kyle Guice did the heavy lifting early on Friday, it was guard Jake Vetsch and post Quinn Mitchell who stepped up in a big way to lead the Timberwolves to a 70-61 win over Post Falls.

Guice scored 15 of his game-high 19 points in the first 14 minutes, to help Lake City take a 33-25 lead in the second quarter of the first round of the Region 1 boys basketball tournament at Lake City.

The second-seeded Timberwolves (16-5), who shot 26 for 44 from the field and outstanding 7 for 11 from beyond the 3-point line, play at No. 1 seed Coeur d'Alene in the regional championship game. Coeur d'Alene routed No. 4 seed Lewiston 76-52.

"I thought offensively during the last few weeks, we've been tougher than nails," Lake City coach Jim Winger said. "We've shot 50 percent for our two-pointers, 40 percent or better from 3. Tonight, it was excellent. Overall, I was impressed with how we played tonight. We have a lot of length, so I thought our zone defense was great. I don't think our man defense was good enough; they are good at penetrating."

No. 3 seed Post Falls (13-8) plays at 7 p.m. Tuesday at The Arena against Lewiston in a loser-out game. The winner plays at the loser of Wednesday's game at 3 p.m. on Saturday, with that winner advancing to state tournament as the No. 2 seed from Region 1.

Post Falls shot 21 of 52 in the game.

"Lake City extended their zone and got out to our shooters," Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. "We hadn't seen that before and it's something we have to watch some film and see what we can do about that. This program is built on effort, so I'm not surprised with how our kids battled at the end. That's as good as Lake City can play. I'm proud of my guys. We've been in this position before as a program, but we knew if we had won this game, it's no reason to celebrate and if we lost this game, we wouldn't hang our heads. This is the IEL, there's no easy way to get through it (to state)."

Post Falls, which trailed 37-30 at halftime, cut the lead to 51-47 after the third quarter, thanks to some inside buckets by post Corey Koski, who scored 15 points and had nine rebounds.

In the fourth quarter, Mitchell scored six points to pace the Timberwolves (16-5) on an 8-0 run to extend their lead to 59-47 with 4:21 left. Koski converted on a 3-point play to cut it to 59-50, before Guice split a double-team along the baseline and made an emphatic slam dunk to put Lake City up, 61-50, with 3:45 remaining.

"We wanted to stick it to them as best we could," Guice said. "It (the dunk) was awesome, we haven't played very well against Post Falls all season. So it was a good feeling. They were never out of it, we know they're a good team. Everybody stepped up and played their role really well."

Guice made five straight field goals in the second quarter, scoring 12 points. Guice finished with 12 rebounds, four assists and four blocked shots.

With 1:59 left in the game, Post Falls guard Max McCullough, who scored 11 points, drained a 3-pointer in front of the Lake City High band from the corner, cutting the lead to 61-53.

Thanks in part to the fact that there's no 24-second play clock in Idaho high school basketball, Post Falls was forced to foul the rest of the game. Vetsch then hit 5 out of 6 free throws to put the game on ice.

Dalton Thompson scored on a goaltending call with :53 left to make it a 65-57 Timberwolf lead, but that was as close as it got for the Trojans. Thompson finished with seven rebounds.

Post Falls 15 15 17 14 - 61

Lake City 19 18 14 19 - 70

POST FALLS - Hall 10, Pfennigs 8, Thompson 5, Koski 15, McCullough 11, McKeown 3, Hillman 7, Anderson 2.

LAKE CITY - Adams 4, Guice 19, Pratt 6, Winger 13, Vetsch 14, Louie-McGee 0, Mitchell 6, Hancock 4, Turner 0, Dahl 4.