1A DIVISION I DISTRICT 1 GIRLS CHAMPIONSHIP: Distance does it for Lakeside

By JASON ELLIOTT

Sports writer

PLUMMER — Shooters shoot, and on Friday night, Ashlee Holt shot it.

No thought, just shoot.

“I never get nervous, I just like to shoot,” Holt said. “Every one of them I think is going in, even if they roll out. I just never get nervous. I just like to play.”

Holt, a junior, scored 16 points, hitting three 3-pointers in the third quarter for the Knights, who pulled away from the Wallace Miners for a 65-42 win in the 1A Division I District 1 girls basketball championship game at Ron Miller Court on Friday.

“This was a really important game for us this year,” Holt said. “We lost both games to them last year, and we only graduated two seniors. And we only have two seniors this year (Tyshea Twoteeth and Kria Peters), so I just want to get our seniors to state as many times as I can. And me being a junior, I’m looking for a title, even though we moved up a division (from 1A Division II). Me and my sister (Jolissa) just both want a title.”

“She’s a great shooter, and definitely needs to be covered,” Lakeside coach Chris Dohrman said of Ashlee Holt. “She can bring a lot of attention to her, it helps our other ladies out on the court. It’s a nice balance that we have. But she’s one of our better players. She does a great job.”

Lakeside (12-7) opens at state Wednesday at 11 a.m. PST at Columbia High in Nampa against Lighthouse Christian (14-5) of Twin Falls. The Knights went 0-2 in the Division II tournament before moving up a classification this year.

“It’s going to be some tough competition, and always is down there,” Dohrman said. “We’re going to go down there, play our hearts out, and see what happens.”

Junior Jolissa Holt, later named the co-MVP of the Scenic Idaho Conference, scored 18 points for Lakeside, which beat Wallace 67-55 on Feb. 2 to lock up the top seed in districts.

Wallace led early on a 3-pointer by junior Jaden House, but then went scoreless for six minutes in the first quarter as Lakeside took a 14-10 lead after the first.

Jolissa Holt scored nine of her 18 points in the second quarter as the Knights began to pull away.

“We had some good ball movement tonight,” Dohrman said. “I think we were a little tight in the first quarter, and especially in the first four minutes. But we did a good job of relaxing and slowly pulling away. We did a great job of extending our lead, and kind of continuing what had worked well against them earlier this year. The girls were really focused and wanted to earn that trip to state, which is always hard to get. And they did a great job, all of them.”

House, also named co-MVP of the league, scored 18 for Wallace, which finishes 8-9.

“We just gave up a lot of rebounds and just had a lot of miscommunication on defense,” Wallace coach Nichole Farkas said. “It just wasn’t our night. We gave it all our effort, but it definitely was Lakeside’s night tonight.”

Wallace was playing for its first state tournament appearance since 2007, when the 1A tournament was a 16-team, four-day event. In recent years, Wallace had to face the third-place team from District 2 in a playoff game to determine its state fate.

“It’s great to be in a league and it’s probably our best shot at getting to state instead of the District 2 route,” Farkas said. “We don’t really know those teams before playing them, so you really don’t know what to expect from them."

Wallace 10 15 8 9 — 42

Lakeside 14 22 18 11 — 65

WALLACE — Specht 3, Cielke 2, House 18, Phillips 4, Welch 5, Burmeister 6, Hemphill 2, Hunter 0, Bergem 2.

LAKESIDE — A. Holt 16, Gorr 8, J. Holt 18, Twoteeth 8, White 0, Lawrence 0, Wienclaw 0, Rivera 0, Matt 0, Lowley 4, Peters 7, Marchand 4, Allen 0.

ALL-SCENIC IDAHO CONFERENCE

CO-MVP — Jolissa Holt, jr., Lakeside; Jaden House, jr., Wallace.

Ashlee Holt, jr., Lakeside; Kria Peters, sr., Lakeside; Arianna Gorr, jr., Lakeside; Elli Welch, jr., Wallace; Chloe Cielke, sr., Wallace; Britany Phillips, fr., Wallace; Lindsay Meerdink, fr., Genesis Prep.