Moscow dispatches of Hawks
<p>Lakeland High School’s Costanza Piermattei out-maneuvers a pair of Moscow players to take possession of a loose ball in the second quarter of the 4A Region 1 tournament Monday at North Idaho College in Coeur d’Alene.</p>
<p>Lakeland’s Savannah Pruitt fights Moscow’s Joelle Stephens for the ball in the first quarter.</p>
COEUR d'ALENE - After pulling a surprise in this game last year, there was no magic this year for the Lakeland Hawks.
No. 3 seed Lakeland made just six baskets, committed 26 turnovers and fell to No. 2 seed Moscow 32-18 in the semifinals of the 4A Region 1 high school girls basketball tournament Monday night at North Idaho College's Christianson Gym.
"I felt like we had the right idea; we just didn't knock the shots down," Lakeland coach Steve Seymour said. "We were never really out of it until 2 minutes left. We ended up with good looks, especially early on, I thought we missed some easy ones. And I thought our defensive effort was really good."
Moscow (10-11) will play No. 1 seed Sandpoint (13-8) on Wednesday at 8 p.m. at NIC in the championship game, for the region's lone berth to state.
Lakeland, which beat Moscow in the semifinal last year before losing to Sandpoint in the title game, finished 5-16.
Senior Kaidan Kelsey scored seven points and grabbed 18 rebounds for Lakeland.
"I told her in the locker room, I told the team, what a great effort on her part," Seymour said. "That freshman girl for Moscow (Gracey Meyer) is pretty physical, and she had to battle and work for every one of those."
But Lakeland shot just 6 for 29 from the field, 6 for 16 from the free-throw line, and committed 26 turnovers. Moscow full-court pressed much of the game, and mixed its man and zone defenses.
"We had a lot of shots that we wanted; at other times it seemed like we just settled," Seymour said. "I would have liked to have seen the offenses run through a little more thoroughly, I guess."
"We knew we had to (put pressure on them), really," Moscow coach Robin Barnes said. "We knew that we couldn't just let them bring it on down and execute, because they execute really well, so we thought pressuring them full-court would take them out of synch a little bit. And it worked."
Moscow was 12 for 48 from the field, 8 of 13 from the line, and finished with 15 turnovers.
"I think these girls were still feeling pretty confident, because they were getting good shots, they just weren't falling," Barnes said. "So at halftime I think they regrouped a little bit, and we made a push in the third quarter. And Gracey had a couple rebounds and steals in the fourth quarter that I think stopped their momentum, or anything they thought they had."
Jada Simpson led Moscow with 11 points. Meyer added seven points, seven rebounds, four steals and a blocked shot.
Lakeland trailed 16-11 at halftime. Moscow opened up a little gap by outscoring the Hawks 9-3 in the third quarter, and Lakeland never got closer than 10 points after that.
"I thought Lakeland played harder than we did; got to the ball quicker than we did," Barnes said.
Lakeland 6 5 3 4 - 18
Moscow 7 9 9 7 - 32
LAKELAND - Charles 0, Vanderhoof 0, Bunch 0, Linehan 0, Kelsey 7, Bodak 3, Kirk 6, Rotchford 0, St. Mark 0, Prockish 0, Pruitt 0, Boyer 0, Piermattei 2, Bilski 0.
MOSCOW - McDaniel 2, Kitchel 1, Bayly 0, G. Meyer 7, Stephens 5, Hill 2, Simpson 11, N. Meyer 2, Davis 2.