5A REGION 1 GIRLS BASKETBALL: Won for the one

By JASON ELLIOTT

Sports writer

Before Friday’s 5A Region 1 girls basketball tournament opener, Lake City senior guard Kendall Pickford — the team’s lone senior — told her teammates she didn’t want to play another game at Lake City High after that night.

Wish granted.

Junior Allie Bowman scored 15 points, one of four players in double figures for the visiting Timberwolves in a 63-57 win over the Coeur d’Alene Vikings at Viking Court, sending Lake City back to the state tournament for the first time since 2019.

“We all wanted it,” Pickford said. “As a team, we all wanted to beat CHS. We just wanted to come out here and prove to everyone that we could do it. We had a lot of people doubting us, but we knew that we could.”

Lake City and Coeur d'Alene were meeting in their fourth straight regional championship games, with Lake City last winning in 2019, Pickford's freshman season. Coeur d'Alene won the regional title in 2020 and 2021.

“We did it for her,” Lake City sophomore Avery Waddington said. “She told us before Friday’s game against Post Falls that she didn’t want to play another game on her home court. This was for her.”

Coeur d’Alene (19-4), the top seed, will host No. 3 seed Post Falls (16-7) in a loser-out game on Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

Post Falls eliminated No. 4 Lewiston 62-44 in a loser-out game at The Arena. The Bengals finished 9-13.

“Lake City’s a good team, and it’s hard to beat a team three times,” said Coeur d’Alene coach Nicole Symons, whose Vikings had beaten the T-Wolves in both meetings during Inland Empire League play. “We just struggled to hit some shots early on and clawed our way back into the game. I thought once we took the lead we’d handle it, and we got a little rattled. They’re a good team and hit shots like we knew they would. We just forced things a little.”

Lake City 63, Coeur d’Alene 57: Bowman was put into the starting lineup to matchup with Coeur d’Alene senior guard Skylar Burke.

“Allie’s confidence has just been growing and growing,” Lake City coach James Anderson said. “Every week, if you look at her last five games, it’s just been off the charts on some of the defensive stuff that she does. We saw the last time that she did a really good job of guarding Skylar (Burke), so we had to make the change. And I think she changed the game for us.”

Lake City limited Coeur d’Alene to 23 first-half points.

“We talked about yellow tape,” Anderson said. “It’s a Damian Lillard thing that I’ve loved for years. Yellow tape is something that they put around a crime scene, and we wanted to come out, just a symbol of aggression and tied some of it on our shoes to remind ourselves over and over it was going to take to get a win like this.”

Coeur d’Alene won 62-48 at Lake City on Jan. 10, then 60-58 on Jan. 21 at Coeur d’Alene High.

“In all honesty, we just talked about being aggressive,” Anderson said. “All we really did was talk about the three things that we could control. The biggest thing was cutting off penetration to the basket, defensive rebounding that was huge and playing with pace where they couldn’t jam us up. And I thought that’s where we could have had control tonight.”

Pickford had nine points, all on 3-pointers to finish with nine points.

“We just had to play our game,” Pickford said. “We wanted to play how we wanted to play and not at their level.”

“It was a little louder in here than I expected,” Anderson said. “They couldn’t hear me in the first half, but KP was screaming at them and getting them organized and being the leader that she’s become. She made that huge impact in the game.”

Waddington scored seven points in the fourth quarter for Lake City.

“This was super big,” Waddington said. “We’ve been in the weight room and this is our night after losing the last two games.”

“It’s really a matchup thing,” Anderson said. “Everyone really stepped up, but Avery was the one that they were willing to let go and prove herself. So we looked at opportunities and matchups. And we’ll let anyone score the ball, and she just had the best opportunities tonight.”

Burke, a senior, and junior Madi Symons scored 23 points each for Coeur d’Alene.

Lake City 14 13 13 23 — 63

Coeur d’Alene 13 10 14 18 — 57

LAKE CITY — Ke. Pickford 9, Ka. Pickford 6, Bowman 15, Zufelt 10, Waddington 12, McKellips 0, Holzer 0, Reynolds 11.

COEUR d’ALENE — Mitchell 0, Awbery 4, Symons 23, Naccarato 0, Holecek 5, Phenicie 0, Carroll 2, Burke 23.

Post Falls 62, Lewiston 46: Junior Capri Sims had 20 points and 12 rebounds as the Trojans eliminated the Bengals at The Arena.

Trinidie Nichols had seven points and seven assists for Post Falls, which beat Lewiston for the fourth time this season.

“We got off to a good start and I liked the rhythm that we played with,” Post Falls coach Marc Allert said. “We played at a good tempo all night and Trindie did a good job controlling the tempo. We got into our transition stuff really well.”

Lexi Heath scored 14 points, hitting four 3-pointers for Post Falls.

Katy Wessels scored 16 points for Lewiston.

Lewiston 10 10 14 12 — 46

Post Falls 21 11 17 13 — 62

LEWISTON — Collins 6, U’Ren 4, Wessels 16, Riddle 4, Kessinger 3, Ortiz 5, Taylor 8.

POST FALLS — McLean 1, Nichols 7, Heath 14, Grant 0, Brennan 0, Sims 20, Asper 10, Crane 7, Walton 0, Christensen 3.