Gennett takes over
LOREN BENOIT/Press Cole Rutherford, left, of Post Falls and Coeur d’Alene’s Drew Hostetter battle a rebound in the second half of Thursday night’s game at Viking Court.
Post Falls players Terrell Mitchell, left, Cole Rutherfod and Colby Gannett celebrate their 67-62 win over Coeur d'Alene Thursday night at Viking Court. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Gavven Desjarlais of Post Falls drives towards the basket as Coeur d'Alene's Devon Johnson blocks during the first half of Thursday night's game at Viking Court. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Coeur d'Alene's Devon Johnson drives towards the basket in the first half of Thursday night's game against Post Falls. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Coeur d'Alene's Kale Edwards scores on a layup in the second half of Thursday night's game against Post Falls at Viking Court. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
COEUR d’ALENE — The lone returning player for Post Falls with much varsity experience, junior Colby Gennett took over in the third quarter for the Trojans on Thursday night.
Gennett scored 11 of his 20 points in the third quarter, filling a highlight reel on defense as well as offense, and the Trojans survived a shaky start and finish to beat the Coeur d’Alene Vikings 67-62 at Viking Court to clinch their third straight 5A Inland Empire League title.
“It’s a team sport,” Gennett said, modestly. “I knew they were giving me the ball, I knew I had to do what I had to do. But it was my teammates passing me the ball, and trusting me to make my shots.”
Post Falls (14-6, 5-0 5A IEL) and Coeur d’Alene (12-5, 3-2) were tied at 29 at halftime.
Early in the third, he cut to the basket, leaped for pass in front of the rim, absorbed the contact and tossed the ball in in one motion en route to a three-point play. Moments later, coming in from the left wing on an alley-oop that was underthrow, he caught the ball as he drifted under the basket and scooped in a reverse layin.
Midway through the quarter, he took a feed from Cole Rutherford and drilled a 3-pointer from the right baseline to cap a 10-2 run that put Post Falls up 39-35. Moments later, coming up the right side on a 2-on-2 in transition, he jumped, leaned a bit to the left while in the air to get a better passing angle, and threaded a bounce pass to Rutherford coming in hard from the left for the layin.
Later in the quarter, he hit another 3 after pass from Rutherford, then he fed Isaac Ballew for a 3-pointer. After Rutherford’s spinning layup that fell just before the buzzer, Post Falls was up 51-39 after 3.
In addition to his scoring, the 6-foot-4 Gennett finished with eight rebounds, five steals and three assists — and those floor stat totals might be on the conservative side.
“Colby is a unique (player)” Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. “When you have a college basketball player — he’s only a junior, but he’s going to play college basketball — what makes Colby so unique is right now, as a junior, he’s a Division I defender, especially off the ball. And he’s got a super-high basketball IQ, so he knows how far he can cheat to help, and still get to his man. Obviously he’s very athletic with a long wingspan, so he changes a lot of shots. He blocks a few, but he changes a lot more.
“And offensively, that’s leadership. The previous two years, he didn’t necessarily have to do a lot; he just had to be there. And now that those other guys have moved on ... when it’s that time, you’ve got to be the guy.”
Post Falls led 61-49 with just under 3 minutes left, before Coeur d’Alene rallied to make things interesting. The Vikings went to the press and forced several Trojan turnovers. Devon Johnson, who finished with 20 points, scored seven in the final 2 minutes to pull the Vikings within 65-61.
Much like Coeur d’Alene in an overtime loss at Post Falls two weeks ago, the Trojans couldn’t put the Vikings away from the free-throw line. Gennett missed four in a row, including two with 9.5 seconds left and Post Falls up 3. But the Vikings lost the ball in the frontcourt, and Gennett drove for the clinching layup at the buzzer.
Terrell Mitchell scored eight of his 20 points in the second quarter for Post Falls, including a pair of 3-pointers as the Trojans closed the quarter on a 15-4 run. Rutherford added 14 points.
“We got more physical,” Gennett said of the second half. “The whole first quarter, they out-physicalled us.”
“We didn’t change anything (in the second half), other than we played harder, and we started to execute at the level at which our program expects,” McLean said.
Drew Hostetter scored 20 points for Coeur d’Alene, which opened in a press and led 9-0 after two minutes. Carter Friesz had 13 rebounds to go with his six points. Kale Edwards, in foul trouble most of the game, had six points and seven rebounds.
“We’re really good when we share the basketball,” Coeur d’Alene coach Tony Hanna said. “Obviously Kale getting in foul trouble was huge for us ... but, we’ve got to be able to function without him. I think we’ve got to be a little bit mentally tougher as far as, we got behind, or they made a couple of runs on us, and we still have a tendency to get shots up as quick as we can, instead of forcing them to play a little bit of defense.
“But we’ve got to take that sometimes, because we’re also a good transition team,” Hanna added. “Some of our best basketball is when we get out and run, and we get good looks. But we’ve got to get a little bit better at what a good look is.”
Both teams return to action next Friday — Post Falls at Lake City, and Coeur d’Alene at home vs. Lewiston.
Post Falls 10 19 22 16 — 67
Coeur d’Alene 17 12 10 23 — 62
POST FALLS — Gennett 20, McLean 2, C. Rutherford 14, Ballew 5, Shields 0, Desjarlais 6, Mitchell 20.
COEUR d’ALENE — Blakeley-Whittaker 0, Johnson 20, Friesz 6, King 4, Hostetter 20, Margo 6, Edwards 6.