5A REGION 1 BOYS BASKETBALL: The run of the season ... Lake City puts away Coeur d’Alene with 20-0 run in fourth quarter of regional loser-out game
Lake City puts away Coeur d’Alene with 20-0 run in fourth quarter of regional loser-out game
COEUR d’ALENE — In high school basketball, if you do some things at the right time, you can give yourself a chance to win — no matter what the stakes are.
With his team leading by two points in the final moments of the third quarter, Lake City freshman point guard Kolton Mitchell stole the ball, drove for a layup, scored, got fouled and make his free throw.
Then, it got contagious among his teammates.
Lake City went on a 20-0 run to start the fourth quarter as the fourth-seeded Timberwolves eliminated the third-seeded Coeur d’Alene Vikings 51-33 in a 5A Region 1 tournament loser-out game at Viking Court on Wednesday.
“There’s some pretty good talent out there that are freshmen,” Winger said. “After last summer at Gonzaga team camp, I thought they’d be right there, and all three have had their moments. Last year, we didn’t have a lot of wins and these juniors, they’ve improved immensely. When we sit down and guard, we’re tough. We struggled a little bit offensively, but when we got rolling, we ran our stuff really well.”
Junior Chris Irvin scored nine points in the first quarter and finished with 11 points, and junior Jack Kiesbuy had a game-high 13 for Lake City (15-8), which visits Lewiston on Saturday at 3 p.m. in the regional second-place game. Lake City and Lewiston split in the regular season, with each team winning on its home floor.
“We had five guys with 6 to 11 points tonight,” Winger said. “It’s pretty tough to single anyone out. It was just exactly what we needed.”
Lake City held Coeur d’Alene scoreless in the first five minutes of the fourth quarter, building a 46-26 lead before a 3-pointer from Coeur d’Alene’s Cooper Larson ended the Viking drought.
“I was very, very pleased,” Winger said. “At halftime, there wasn’t a lot of points, but we were juiced up and ready to go. We just finally cut loose offensively and played our butts off. We got after it defensively. We’re quick and worked well together. If our help defense is there, we can play really good defense. In the first half, when we struggled a little bit, it kept us right there. It’s still high school basketball. If you play hard and play good defense, you give yourself a shot to win.”
Senior Devon Johnson scored 10 points for Coeur d’Alene, which finishes 7-15.
“They got going and made some shots,” Hanna said of Lake City. “When we get behind, we struggle a little bit. We struggle to score as it is. I think we’re a good defensive team, and a good rebounding team. It’s been all year for us. This one, it was win or go home, so we had to try to make some things happen and I don’t think we were all on the same page, and they hit some open shots. I don’t care if we lose by 5 or 20, and at this point, we’re going to try to do something to get ourselves back in it and give ourselves a chance. We tried to push tempo and they made some big plays.”
Lake City 13 6 12 20 — 51
Coeur d’Alene 6 9 11 7 — 33
LAKE CITY — Janke 0, Irvin 11, Kiesbuy 13, Spellman 6, Johnson 11, Hanson 3, Mitchell 7, Sundstrom 0, Meredith 0.
COEUR d’ALENE — Whittaker 7, Bengtson 0, C. Smith 2, Johnson 10, Larson 5, Karns 0, Prka 2, Cope 4, O. Smith 0, McLaughlin 2.