5A INLAND EMPIRE LEAGUE BOYS BASKETBALL: Trojans counter

POST FALLS - Trailing by seven points at home at halftime Friday night, the second-ranked Post Falls Trojans "never hit the panic button," Post Falls coach Mike McLean said.

The Trojans simply made some adjustments, slowly caught up, took the lead for good with 5 1/2 minutes left and went on to beat the Lake City Timberwolves 46-40 in 5A Inland Empire League play at The Arena.

"The first half reminded me, 'This is just the IEL,'" McLean said. "I was impressed watching the way Lake City played defense against us. I'm looking at coach (Jim) Winger, coach (Kelly) Reed, coach (John) Astorquia, thinking, they did a great job preparing those kids. And it took us about a half to figure out how we were going to make our adjustment."

Post Falls was 7 of 26 from the floor in the first half.

As for the adjustment?

"I thought we had to work on our spacing better," McLean said. "I thought in the first half, when our shots weren't falling, our spacing broke down and we had kids standing 7, 8 feet apart. And with Lake City's size, those kids are guarding two people with one guy. So in the second half we really tried to get that spacing to 15 to 18 feet apart, to open up our driving lanes. Our guards don't need much room, so just a little bit, we can get what we wanted."

Dalton Thompson scored 10 of his 15 points in the second half for Post Falls (14-1, 2-0 5A IEL).

Nick Hancock scored a game-high 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds for Lake City (8-6, 2-2), which looked sharp in taking a 24-17 halftime lead, then managed just 16 points in the second half.

"I'm not pleased," Lake City coach Jim Winger said. "That one was there for the taking, and we went to running our own program out there. The first half was executed great, we reversed the ball, we didn't get beat on the dribble, we rebounded the heck out of the ball.

"We go out in the second half, we never reversed the ball, we were awful rebounding the ball, and we got beat on the bounce the entire second half. If people are walking out of here thinking, 'They're the No. 2 team in the state and what a great effort by us,' I'm not buying that. I'm not buying that at all. That game is a game we should have won, and our execution, it was not good enough."

Lake City played mostly zone in the second half, and Post Falls made just 4 of 24 3-point shots for the game. But the T-Wolves struggled to rebound out of the zone.

With Post Falls leading 42-38 with 2:52 left, the Trojans missed four shots in a possession - and got the ball back each time. Three times it was by offensive rebound - two of them by 5-foot-9 guard Max McCullough. Eventually Thompson was fouled and made two free throws to extend the lead to six - and run a total of 1:34 off the clock.

"We wanted to give them a different look, and I think it worked," Winger said. "But four straight possessions, we got beat on the baseline and they kick it to the corner, and that's what they love. We don't want them shooting off that dribble-drive and kicking. That's the whole goal. We did it four straight times, and that was the end of it. And then we stood and watched, and it was too late.

"We got wrapped up in the moment, and went away from the offense."

Lake City jumped out to a 12-5 lead in the first four minutes. Post Falls pulled even at 26 midway through the third quarter, and a baseline runner by McCullough with 5:26 left in the game, followed by a nice feed from Jake Blakney to Thompson for a layup, made it 37-33 Post Falls.

Hancock's 3-point play with 3:48 left pulled Lake City to within 39-38, but Thompson answered with a 3 and the Trojans held off the T-Wolves the rest of the way.

McLean credited his bigs, Blakney and Jack Millsap, for battling Lake City's bigs, Hancock and Quinn Mitchell, allowing the Trojan guards to get those key offensive boards. In the second half, Post Falls was most effective driving and kicking the ball to the corner, and when a shot was not there, attacking Lake City by driving the baseline.

"In the first half, we tried attacking them head-on," McLean said. "I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I figured out after two quarters we're not going to be able to attack them head-on; we're going to have to try it from a different area."

Today, Lake City travels to Glacier of Kalispell, Mont., and Post Falls visits Lewiston.

Lake City 14 10 7 9 - 40

Post Falls 10 7 14 15 - 46

LAKE CITY - Goggin 2, Dotson 2, Hunter 4, Hughes 0, Pasquale 7, Colwell 0, Mitchell 4, Hancock 21.

POST FALLS - McLean 0, W. Millsap 4, McCullough 5, Anderson 5, Flaa 0, English 0, Pfennigs 0, Thompson 15, Hillman 3, J. Millsap 8, Blakney 6.