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Lake City upended by Lewiston again

by Jason Elliott Sports Writer
| February 3, 2018 12:00 AM

It happened again on the opening night of the 5A Region 1 high school girls basketball tournament.

The top seed — Post Falls — rolled into a title game at home, beating visiting Coeur d’Alene 55-19 in one opener.

The second seed — Lake City — stumbled out of the gate, getting upset by Lewiston on its home floor 42-24. In last year’s regional opener, Lewiston topped Lake City 52-40, but the Timberwolves came back and eliminated Lewiston six days later, then won a state play-in game two days later.

“You’ve got to tip your hat to Lewiston really,” first-year Lake City coach James Anderson said. “They played hard from the gun. They really got into us and it really seemed as if they wanted it bad and put a lot of pressure on us. We didn’t do a great job of responding to that and for whatever reason, it didn’t seem like we had a lot of pop tonight.”

Post Falls (20-2), which went unbeaten in the 5A Inland Empire League this season, hosts Lewiston (16-6) on Tuesday night at 6:30 for the regional title and a berth to state.

“Post Falls, that’s a tall order,” Lewiston coach Dave Cornelia said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to slow them down and make them sweat it out a little bit. If we can do that, we’ll take our chances and hopefully the chips fall our way.”

Post Falls beat Lewiston 58-26 at The Arena on Jan. 2, then again on 64-36 at Booth Hall on Jan. 12.

“If it was just Melody (Kempton), we’d have a good chance. But they’ve got Bayley (Brennan) and Tyler (McCliment-Call) that are really good. Their first seven players contribute in one way or another. They get rebounds and score. Whatever they do, they do some great things. We’ve got to do something against everybody.”

“Lewiston, they’ve got a team of 3-point shooters and when they’re shooting well, they’re tough to beat,” Post Falls coach Marc Allert said. “We know each other really well and know what they want to do well. (Kendyll) Kinzer, she’s definitely a good player and makes a difference for them. She’s a good matchup with Melody (Kempton) and definitely makes a difference for them.”

Kinzer, the Bengals’ leading scorer last year, has missed the majority of this season with a knee injury. She did not play in the first two meets with Post Falls this season. She scored nine points off the bench on a minutes limit Friday against Lake City.

Lake City (13-9) will host Coeur d’Alene (6-15) in a loser-out game, also on Tuesday night at 6:30. The Timberwolves swept the Vikings in league this season.

Lewiston 42, Lake City 24: Bridget Rieken scored a game-high 12 points for the Timberwolves, including her team’s first nine of the game.

Lake City beat Lewiston 47-40 on Jan. 5 in Coeur d’Alene, and again 51-47 in double overtime on Jan. 22 at Booth Hall to clinch the second seed to regionals.

“In some big games this year, we showed up with some pop and did a good job of getting after it,” Anderson said. “We just didn’t have it tonight. We’ve been playing really good lately and been on the rise and peaking. Now we’ve got to figure that out again in a hurry and see if we can get rolling again next week.”

Lewiston outscored Lake City 18-4 in the third quarter to take a 37-17 lead.

“We were really focused from the get-go,” Cornelia said. “We wanted to make them earn everything they got tonight. Early on, they had a 45-second and a minute possession, and I thought we did made them earn it. We’ve still got some things to work on, but I thought we did a good job of digging down in the post when they caught it. We had a great effort and we blocked out really well and didn’t give a lot of second chances.”

Alyssa Ralstin led Lewiston with 11 points.

Lewiston 12 9 18 5 — 42

Lake City 6 7 4 7 — 24

LEWISTON — Randall 2, Ralstin 11, Cornelia 2, Kinzer 9, Genzer 5, Isley 0, Cady 8, Eke 0, Stoddard 5.

LAKE CITY — Avery 2, Barber 0, Mitchell 0, Teets 5, Rieken 12, Wilson 0, Halliday 0, Rewers 2, Simpson 3.

Post Falls 55, Coeur d’Alene 19: Needing a spark on offense in the first half, senior Bayley Brennan stepped up for the Trojans, scoring 13 of her game-high 23 points to take a 16-10 lead against the Vikings.

“We kind of struggled to score other than her in the first quarter,” Allert said. “She was able to get some points in transition and got us started when everyone else struggled. Coeur d’Alene played well in the first half and harder than we did. They looked like the team that was playing for something and we didn’t. The kids figured out what they needed to do defensively in the second half.”

Post Falls outscored Coeur d’Alene 39-9 in the final three quarters, including 27-2 in the second half.

“I went into the locker room at halftime and asked them what we needed to do and they (Post Falls players) rattled off what we needed to do,” Allert said. “They said it, and I told them, ‘now go do it.’”

Melody Kempton had 14 points, 10 rebounds and five blocked shots, Macky Morris nine rebounds and Jenna Gardiner six assists for Post Falls.

Emma Whiteman scored 11 points for Coeur d’Alene.

Coeur d’Alene 10 7 2 0 — 19

Post Falls 16 12 19 8 — 55

COEUR d’ALENE — Minerath 6, Brainard-Adams 0, Chavez 0, Whiteman 11, Younker 0, Louden 2.

POST FALLS — Gleaves 3, Morris 5, Gardiner 1, Brennan 23, T. McCliment-Call 4, J. McCliment-Call 0, Kempton 14, Parks 5.