PREP BOYS BASKETBALL: Lewiston ends Post Falls season
LEWISTON — The shots didn’t fall, from near or from far, and with that, the Post Falls Trojans boys basketball season came to an end Thursday night.
Post Falls made just 15 of 48 (31%) from the field, fell behind early and could never catch up in a 55-44 loss to the Lewiston Bengals in the second-place game of the 5A Region 1 tournament at Lewiston High.
Post Falls, which shot 9 of 26 from 2 and 6 of 22 from 3, finished 14-8.
Lewiston (12-6) advances to a state play-in game vs. Eagle on Saturday in Grangeville.
“It wasn’t our best game,” Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. “Tonight we did not shoot it well. Especially in that first quarter, I think we missed five layups, and we missed another three in the second quarter. And they continued to do their (box-and-one on Caden McLean), and we got open shot after open shot, and tonight we didn’t make enough.”
Cole Rutherford and Alex Horning scored 12 points each for Post Falls, and McLean added 10.
The Trojans scored just two points in the first quarter, and trailed 20-11 at halftime.
“Defense was not our issue tonight; we just struggled to score tonight,” Mike McLean said. “And honestly, that’s been something this group struggled with all year — consistently scoring. Especially down the stretch, we faced a lot of different kinds of defenses.”
Kash Lang scored a game-high 14 points for Lewiston, which avenged a 58-45 loss to Post Falls last Friday in a first-round game in the Bengals’ gym.
It marked only the third time in McLean’s 14 seasons as coach that Post Falls did not make it to state — and the first time since 2016.
The loss ended the career, in particular, of Post Falls’ three three-year starters — McLean, Rutherford and Horning. As sophomores, they helped the Trojans place third at state, and last year, they reached the state title game.
“Obviously this is not the way this senior group wanted it to end, but that’s part of the deal,” Mike McLean said. “Our conference is as strong as its been in a few years, and down the stretch,
other teams made more shots than us. This season didn’t end the way we wanted it to, but you look at the career for those three — Caden and Alex and Cole — it hurts now, and it’s going to hurt for a week or so. But when you look back in a few years at their three-year run, they had a pretty good career; I think they can all hold their heads pretty high. Those guys won a lot of games.”
Post Falls 2 9 12 21 — 44
Lewiston 4 16 11 24 — 55
POST FALLS — Anderson 1, McLean 10, Rodriguez 2, Rutherford 12, Ballew 6, Lee 2, Horning 12, Shields 0.
LEWISTON — Eke 6, McKarcher 8, Lang 14, Mullikin 8, Hepburn 9, Forsman 2, White 0, Forsmann 8.