THE FRONT ROW WITH JASON ELLIOTT: Saturday, February 13, 2016
One team is already locked into its spot at the state girls basketball tournament.
The other, they’ll face a team that clipped them earlier in the season a little later today just to get a chance at it.
EARLIER THIS week, the Timberlake Tigers clinched a berth to the state 3A tournament for the third straight season. In the previous two, it has worked out pretty well for the Tigers, moving to the state title game in each year.
“It’s nice because you kind of get a clean slate,” said Timberlake coach Matt Miller, whose team has finished second at the state tournament in four of the last five years. “It’s not like playing a district tournament where you see a team three times. You’ve got to feel them out a lot quicker than during the regular season.”
Timberlake enters the state tournament on a 20-game win streak, with its lone loss at Lewiston in the season opener 54-52.
“We just need to continue doing what we’re doing,” Miller said. “Honestly, and especially last year, it just comes down to making shots. We do a good job with our defense of getting easy shots, but we’ve got to finish at the basket.”
In last year’s title game, Timberlake finished 12 of 50 from the field in a loss to Sugar-Salem at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.
“It just came down to easy shots,” Miller said. “I thought we played a lot better than Sugar-Salem did in pretty much everything but field goal percentage. But field goal percentage is a pretty big stat. Staying healthy and doing what we do is going to be key. We’re small, and there’s going to be some big teams down there, so we’ll have to do what we do.”
WITH A win today at Grangeville High, the Post Falls girls will advance to the state tournament for the first time since the 2012-13 season.
First off, they’ll have to beat Borah High of Boise, which beat the Trojans 44-38 in the TimberLion tournament in Boise in December.
“We’ll go watch a little bit of film on them and see what we can do differently,” Post Falls coach Marc Allert said. “We’re pretty close. They’ve got a good point guard, and a girl that can shoot it pretty well and a good inside player. We’ll have our work cut out for us for sure.”
Post Falls, which split a pair of regular season games each with Lake City and Lewiston, beat Lewiston again on Thursday night for the third time in four tries this season to advance. In that second-place game, the teams combined to shoot 69 free throws.
“That was not pretty by any means,” Allert said. “I almost want to go and apologize to everyone in here who came and paid to watch that. Neither team played very well, but at this point, a win is a win, and we’ll take it. We’ll take it and hopefully play a little better in the next one.”
And if they’re lucky enough, at least two more next weekend.
Jason Elliott is a sports writer for the Coeur d’Alene Press. He can be reached by telephone at 664-8176, Ext. 2020 or via email at jelliott@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter @JEPressSports.