PREP BOYS BASKETBALL: Energetic opener ... Mitchell pours in 38 as Lake City begins quest for title

By MARK NELKE

Sports editor

COEUR d’ALENE — After one quarter of Step 1 of the Season With A Target On Their Backs, the Lake City Timberwolves got a talking-to from the coaches.

It wasn’t 25 points they scored in an entertaining opening quarter. It was the 19 points the Timberwolves gave up to the Wildcats, most of whom were playing in their first varsity game.

Lake City buckled down on defense in the second quarter and led by as much as 21 points en route to a 76-62 victory over Mt. Spokane — accomplished without two of their top six players.

“We’re a much better defensive team than that,” Lake City coach Jim Winger said. “We made a couple little tweaks, but they just focused in more. I think they were juiced up for the game, and offense was going good; we just weren’t communicating on a couple missed assignments — more than a couple missed assignments, actually.”

Kolton Mitchell, a junior guard and third-year starter, poured in 38 points, tying the school record set by Matt Dlouhy some two decades ago. Mitchell hit five 3-pointers and sank 13 of 14 from the free-throw line.

Lake City played without junior Zach Johnson, another three-year starter sidelined with an ankle injury, and junior Deacon Kiesbuy.

“It was nice to get back out there with the guys; with some new guys too,” Mitchell said. “Sucked that we didn’t have Zach out there, but hopefully he’ll be back Friday. “Our whole team brings the energy; I feed off the team; the team feeds off of me. When we’ve all got energy, we can play some pretty good defense.”

Junior Blake Buchanan had 12 points and eight rebounds for Lake City, and Nathan Hocking, a junior transfer from Ferris, added 12 points and five boards.

“Everyone was super happy for this game, it was just good to get back out there; it felt like forever,” Buchanan said.

Lake City led 47-30 at halftime. Mt. Spokane pulled to within 10 points in the fourth quarter before Timberwolf freshman Reese Strawn hit a big 3-pointer from the right wing with 3 minutes left to blunt the comeback.

“There’s 20 more of these steps before we get into districts,” Winger said. “What I really liked about tonight was, obviously we had great energy, did some great things, we messed up at the end of the third quarter, which was a communication thing on my part … and I thought we responded to that. For a first game I was pleased with our energy, and our offense in particular.”

Mt. Spokane, whose star last year, Tyson Degenhart, is now playing as a freshman at Boise State, was led by Xavier Kamalu-Vargas, who scored 20 points.

“I knew that they were probably the No. 1 team in the state,” seventh-year Mt. Spokane coach David Wagenblast said of Lake City. “And that was why we came here, to play the best, and they are exceptional. The point guard (Mitchell), he can score at will, and he’s got three big guys with him. That’s an incredible team, and we look forward to seeing how they do this year.”

Lake City plays host to University on Friday.

Mt. Spokane 19 11 19 13 — 62

Lake City 25 22 14 15 — 76

MT. SPOKANE — Roe 0, Lafferty 14, Williams 5, Davidson 3, Sanders 10, Rayment 6, Travis 4, Kamalu-Vargas 20.

LAKE CITY — Buchanan 12, Strawn 5, Hill 0, Jones 3, Miller 4, Hocking 12, Weaver 2, Mitchell 38.

Central Valley 86

Post Falls 72

POST FALLS — The visiting point guard stole the show as Dylan Darling, drawing interest from several Division I schools, poured in 55 points to lead the Bears past the Trojans in the season opener for both teams at The Arena.

The 6-2 Darling tallied 32 in the first half for Central Valley.

“He is a very skilled and strong and composed point guard,” Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. “He could score any way he wanted to. He did to us what Marcus Colbert used to do for us. He got shots for his teammates, and he got his shot whenever he wanted.”

Freshman Tyrus Blake tossed in 25 points for Post Falls, which has no returning starters. Blake was 9 of 13 from the field, including 5 of 8 on 3-pointers.

McLean said he was pleased to see his team shoot 53 percent from the field, and have 16 assists on its 26 field goals.

“We have a lot of room to improve,” McLean said. “We can’t give up 86 points.”

Jack Sciortino, the lone returning player from last year, had 15 points and four assists for Post Falls. Christian VonBruck had four assists and five rebounds, Cooper Craig five boards.

Post Falls plays host to University on Thursday.

Central Valley 26 22 18 20 — 86

Post Falls 19 18 16 19 — 72

CENTRAL VALLEY — McGloflin 0, Martinez 0, Breesnee 2, Brulotte 2, Dylan Darling 55, Griego 0, Hoene 3, Crowley 7, Rowell 8, Smith 5, Chalich 0, Gravelle 3.

POST FALLS — Sciortino 15, Naylor 3, McCarthy 8, Summers 2, VonBruck 7, Craig 4, Bowie 5, Blake 25, Butler 3, Cooper 0.

Lakeland 64

Kellogg 57

RATHDRUM — Further details were not available from the late starting game.

Timberlake 50

Lakeside 40

SPIRIT LAKE — Senior Zach Yetter scored a game-high 17 points to lead the Tigers past the Knights in the nonleague opener for both.

Junior Hunter Higgins scored nine points for Timberlake, which hosts Riverside on Friday.

“We played with a lot of defensive energy tonight,” Timberlake coach Mike LaFountaine said. “We were able to fluster them a little bit and create a few turnovers and played with some good defensive pressure.”

Sophomore Brutis SiJohn scored 12 points and junior Vander Brown scored 10 points for Lakeside, which hosts Mullan on Thursday.

Lakeside 12 8 10 10 — 40

Timberlake 9 14 14 13 — 50

LAKESIDE — Matt 4, V. Brown 10, SiJohn 12, Vassar 6, Hall 2, Kee 6.

TIMBERLAKE — Tay. Menti 2, Vallieres 3, Paslay 8, Yetter 17, Borges 3, Higgins 9, Tan. Menti 2, McArthur 6.

St. Maries 64

Priest River 36

PRIEST RIVER — After making a directional adjustment, the Lumberjacks settled down in their first game since winning the state 2A championship last March.

Junior guard Grayson Sands had 15 points, going 3 of 5 from the 3-point line, as Lumberjacks beat the Spartans in the nonleague opener for both at Priest River High.

Coleman Ross had 11 points and Colby Renner 12 points and 11 rebounds for St. Maries, which hosts Lapwai on Friday.

James Yount scored 10 points, all in the first half, and Trentyn Kreager had nine points for Priest River.

“We started to figure out their sets and how to guard them in the second half,” St. Maries coach Bryan Chase said. “We didn’t guard the guys on the right side in the first half. Both Kreager and Yount are lefties. We’d tried to focus on slowing them down, and finally got in the right spot in the second half.”

St. Maries 18 15 25 6

Priest River 12 16 5 3

ST. MARIES — Gentry-Nelson 10, Sands 15, Badgett 0, Ross 11, Wolfe 5, Holder 0, Elliott 3, T. Renner 4, Wicks 0, C. Renner 12, Hill 4.

PRIEST RIVER — Mathews 0, Butler 6, Kreager 9, Barrett 5, Thompson 4, Yount 10, Marinello 2.

Wallace 60

Kootenai 16

HARRISON FLATS — Brad Tesky and Theron Morden scored 12 points each for the Miners in a win over the Warriors in the nonleague opener for both.

“We had too many turnovers and our defense needs a little work,” first-year Kootenai coach Jake Pfeiffer said. “They had some big guys were able to get some shots up on us. We’ll get back to work and continue to get better.”

Freshman Chris Moore scored eight points, senior Carter McGann seven points for Kootenai, which hosts Mullan in the North Star League opener next Tuesday.

Wallace faces the Post Falls JV in the opening game of the Silver Valley Tournament on Friday at Andrews Gymnasium in Kellogg.

Wallace 18 19 18 6 — 60

Kootenai 3 2 10 1 — 16

WALLACE — Goldade 2, Davis 5, Streeter 3, Morin 2, Allison 4, Hasz 6, Schmidt 6, Morden 12, Murdock 0, Hull 8, Tesky 12.

KOOTENAI — Moore 8, Orford 1, C. McGann 7, Zavala 0, Hysell 0, Anderson 0, B. McGann 0, Hodges 0.

N.I. Christian 64

The Oaks 55

COEUR d’ALENE — Malachi Bullington had 36 points, 20 rebounds and five blocked shots for the Royals in a Mountain Christian League win over The Oaks at Holy Family Catholic School.

Kameron Heston scored 12 points and Levi Grassi had 10 assists, seven points and five steals for North Idaho Christian (5-0, 1-0 MCL), which hosts Christian Center on Thursday at Holy Family Catholic School.

Cooper Christensen scored 16 points for The Oaks.

The Oaks 10 21 14 10 — 55

N.I. Christian 14 18 16 16 — 64

THE OAKS — Curran 6, Harken 10, Schubin 6, Mattson 13, Krentel 0, Cook 4, Lin 0, Christensen 16 (Cooper), four 3-pointers …

NORTH IDAHO CHRISTIAN — Grassi 7, Adams 3, Dinkins 0, Heston 12, McKee 3, Desrochers 1, Alliano 2, Koontz 0, Sakae 0, O’Brien 0, Bullington 36.