5A REGION 1 BOYS BASKETBALL: Post Falls tops Lewiston for third straight regional title

POST FALLS — Early on, it was apparent this was not going to be the free-flowing game that unfolded the last time the Post Falls Trojans and Lewiston Bengals played.

But that’s OK by Post Falls. The Trojans have shown they can win a slow-paced game as well.

Junior Alex Horning scored 21 points and top-seeded Post Falls got enough done against Lewiston’s zone defense to beat the second-seeded Bengals 51-40 and win their third straight 5A Region 1 boys basketball championship Wednesday night at The Arena.

“It’s interesting,” said Post Falls coach Mike McLean, who rolled out to midcourt in his knee scooter to accept the regional championship trophy. “We saw a lot of zones in the preseason. Not a lot of teams in our league had, but ... we preach to our guys, ‘Patience, patience, patience’ in zone offense, because we have a tendency to shoot quick shots and be in a hurry. Tonight, we might have been a little too patient. But I can’t be frustrated with our guys, doing exactly what we ask them. We did a good job holding our composure and not getting flustered.”

Junior Caden McLean added 15 points for Post Falls (20-3), which punched its ticket to state for the 11th time in the last 12 seasons. The Trojans will open the state tourney next Thursday at 12:15 p.m. PST at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa, facing the winner of a state play-in game between Madison (16-9) of Rexburg, the District 5-6 runner-up, and the fifth-place finisher from the District 3 tournament.

Lewiston (13-8) will get one more game at storied Booth Hall, before the Bengals’ new high school opens in the fall. The Bengals will play host to No. 4 seed Lake City (15-8) for the region’s second berth to state Saturday at 3 p.m. Lake City eliminated third seed Coeur d’Alene (7-15) 51-33 on Wednesday.

After a possession or two of man-to-man defense, Lewiston switched to a 1-2-2 zone — basically the first time the Bengals played zone the whole year, and a defense Lewiston coach Jayson Ulrich said they installed in two days this week.

Horning scored on a putback, then fed Colby Gennett for a 3-pointer, then McLean scored on a driving layup and Post Falls was out to a 9-3 lead.

Post Falls led 28-16 on Horning’s 3-point play with 3:35 left in the first half.

“We were a little slow to start with; we figured they would go to a man-to-man,” Horning said. “But they went to a zone and it took us a second, but we adapted to it. We slowed it down and had a better shot selection, and that helped us get buckets.”

“We were just trying to get it inside,” Caden McLean added, “because Alex, no one in our league can guard him, when he gets the ball in there.”

The Trojans burned a lot of clock probing the zone, but Lewiston took the momentum into the locker room when Aiden Hottinger stole the ball and Chanse Eke banked in a 30-footer at the buzzer, cutting Post Falls’ lead to 28-22.

With Post Falls leading by seven with 5 minutes left, McLean’s low-arcing 3-point shot from the right baseline hit the rim, bounced up in the air and through the net (“soft touch,” he joked). Cole Rutherford, who had seven rebounds and three assists, stole the ball on Lewiston’s next possession, and Horning’s inside basket made it 43-31 with just over 3 minutes left.

Gennett finished with nine points, six rebounds and two blocked shots, and drove the baseline for a two-handed slammer with 32 seconds left.

McLean hit 3 of 4 3-pointers for Post Falls, which shot 19 of 40 from the field.

“It bothers us, but we keep pushing through it every time,” Gennett said of facing zones. “That’s what we proved during this regionals run.”

“The nice thing is now we’ve got time to go back and look at it on film, and come up with some different wrinkles,” said Mike McLean, still recovering after suffered a dislocated right ankle and other injuries to his foot in a mishap on his farm/ranch on Super Bowl Sunday. “Been doing this long enough now, we weren’t going to show everything, because I know there’s a lot of teams in the south watching this. Not everything’s on the table yet.”

George Forsmann, a 6-foot-6 junior post, led Lewiston with nine points. The Bengals got plenty of good looks against the Trojans, but made just 14 of 36 (38.9%) from the field. They were 2 of 7 at the free-throw line in the first half, 7 of 14 for the game.

When the teams last met, in a game moved to Lake City due to a power outage in Post Falls, the Trojans raced to a 77-48 victory.

This game looked nothing like that one.

“I was very happy with our defense,” Ulrich said. “Making them slow down, and not getting into the paint off the bounce, and really getting wide-open looks on 3s that they’re used to, I was proud of our guys. You don’t want to get into a shooting match with them ... we were keeping it close. A couple bounces didn’t go our way, and they’re good — they deserved it this year.”

Lewiston 11 11 7 11 — 40

Post Falls 18 10 8 15 — 51

LEWISTON — Eke 6, McKarcher 5, Lang 6, Mullikin 4, Hottinger 3, Hepburn 7, Forsman 0, Forsmann 9.

POST FALLS — Gennett 9, McLean 15, Rodriguez 2, Rutherford 2, Ballew 0, Lee 2, Horning 21, Shields 0.