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Schedule toughens Trojans

by Mark Nelke Sports Editor
| February 27, 2018 10:02 PM

Heading into this season, the Post Falls High boys basketball team had every reason to be confident.

The Trojans had all but one player back from last year’s team that was one game from playing for a state 5A championship, but was upset in the state semifinals.

They were ready for redemption.

Then, Post Falls struggled to a victory in its opener.

Six days later, the Trojans were routed on their home floor in a highly anticipated matchup by Gonzaga Prep, a Greater Spokane League power with its own designs on bringing home a state title in Washington.

Anton Watson, a standout growing up in Coeur d’Alene and now a junior at Gonzaga Prep, scored 28 points and dunked on Post Falls a handful of times in a 68-51 victory that didn’t seem quite that close.

“It was a little bit of an eye-opener for us,” Post Falls senior guard Tanner McCliment-Call said. “It pushed us to get better.”

“This game still haunts me as a coach and as a program,” Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. “Coming into the season, our team had a lot of expectations placed upon us from the outside, but none of the those expectations exceeded what our expectations were from within. To start the season, our guys were practicing hard, but we were struggling to find consistency on both the offensive and defensive end.

“We were really fortunate to get a win against Rogers in our first game and as a team we had not truly bought into the fact that everyone has a role on the team and everyone is absolutely responsible to fulfill that roll every day at practices and in games. Another issue we were dealing with to start was a case of complacency. Our current players cannot remember a time when Trojan basketball was not at the top or toward the top in the IEL and in the state. Nothing comes easy within our program, and we schedule that way as well.”

Post Falls is used to playing tough competition. Under McLean, in his 11th season as head coach at his alma mater, the Trojans have now qualified for state nine times, with two state titles, one runner-up finish and four trophies overall.

“Gonzaga Prep beat us down in a fashion that has not happened to this program in over nine years,” McLean said. “Anton Watson came in here looking for vengeance against the Trojans because he watched his older brother Deon battle against the Trojans while he was at Coeur d’Alene. We did not make any excuses. All of us — coaching staff, support staff and players — all got a very large piece of humble pie.”

Two weeks later, Post Falls headed to Las Vegas, playing in the top bracket of the Tarkanian Classic. The Trojans represented the school and Idaho well, going 2-2 against some of the top teams in the country.

“That got us ready for Vegas,” McCliment-Call said of the Gonzaga Prep experience. “We were a little bit cocky at the beginning of the year, like no one’s going to be able to compete with us at all, and there’s a lot of teams that can compete with us out there.”

Coming off the high of the Vegas trip, Post Falls lost its first game after that, at the Lake City Invitational to a Columbia River team from Vancouver, Wash., that is currently 19-5.

Post Falls then lost at Mt. Spokane the following week, but has won 12 straight games since, heading into this week’s state 5A tournament that begins Thursday at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.

“Looking back, nothing in our preseason schedule could have turned out better for us,” McLean said of the Gonzaga Prep game. “That good ol’ whoopin’ really galvanized our team and ever since, we have practiced and played with much more attention to detail. Without the Gonzaga Prep game result, I am not sure we would have done as well at Vegas as we did. Gonzaga Prep is a fantastic team that is having a magical run in their state, but we played three teams in Vegas that are as good if not better than Prep.

“We beat Rancho Christian to start the Tarkanian Classic, and I am convinced we would not have won that game if the Gonzaga Prep game had not turned out the way it did. The two games we lost in Vegas, we played the two most athletic and skilled high school teams I had ever coached against. We competed with them the entire time and grew as individuals and as a team because of that experience.”

The Trojans were exposed to teams that were bigger and more athletic, but quickly realized if they were disciplined, played to their strengths and outworked the opposition, they could give those more-athletic teams problems.

Post Falls is led by senior Jake Pfennigs (16.1 points per game, 10.4 rebounds), McCliment-Call (15.2 points, 2.6 assists) and sophomore Colby Gennett (10.3 points, 3.9 rebounds, 2.15 assists).

The Trojans’ X-factor is its role players, all seniors — David Bourgard, Nic Morris, Casey Walker, Matt Fleming. Last Tuesday, Bourgard scored a game-high 18 points, 12 in the first quarter, in Post Falls’ victory over Coeur d’Alene in the Region 1 championship game.

Post Falls has eight seniors in its nine-man rotation.

Last season, Post Falls needed an alley-oop in the final seconds to beat Boise in the first round at state. In the semifinals, Centennial hit 11 of 23 3-pointers — 7 of 14 in the first half — and held off Post Falls 72-61. The Trojans lost to Lewiston in the third-place game; Centennial lost to Rocky Mountain of Meridian in the championship game.

As it turns out, Post Falls opens vs. Centennial on Thursday.

“I think everybody on the team thought we should have beat Centennial last year, and thought we had a good chance against Rocky,” McCliment-Call said. “We don’t want that to happen again.”