STATE 5A BOYS BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT: Lake City bounces back, will play for consolation title

By MARK NELKE

Sports editor

MERIDIAN — The mourning lasted until the morning.

Then the Lake City Timberwolves met and tried to put behind them Thursday’s disappointing first-round loss to Centennial at the state 5A boys basketball tournament.

Less than two hours later, the top-seeded Timberwolves did just that, leading by as much as 21 points before settling for a 62-53 victory over the fourth-seeded Eagle Mustangs in a consolation round game Friday afternoon at Rocky Mountain High.

“We got over it, and we showed up today ready to play. We weren’t ready to go home,” said Lake City junior Zach Johnson, who had a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds. “And we went out and played like it."

Nathan Hocking scored a game-high 21 points for Lake City (23-2), which will play third seed Madison (19-6) of Rexburg in the consolation championship game today at 9 a.m. PST at Columbia High in Nampa. Madison, which lost to No. 6 Meridian on Thursday, beat No. 7 Mountain View of Meridian 43-42 on Friday.

Kolton Mitchell nearly had a triple double, totaling 13 points, eight rebounds and nine assists. Blake Buchanan had six points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots.

“We were pretty down,” Lake City coach Jim Winger said. “But we had a good meeting in the meeting room at the hotel. The premise of what I tried to get across is, we owe the school, the community, our seniors and our team and themselves individually to show what they’ve got. There’s been a lot of attention on the team, there’s been a lot of people come watch, a lot of excitement. We didn’t get it done the day before; we need to go out and play with as much energy and as much fight. We can’t take yesterday back; we have to come out here and show what we’re about, and show people, we didn’t get it done last night, but this is who we are.

“I thought we played really hard,” Winger added. “And defensively, until the last four minutes, was as solid as it’s been all year. Nathan is really having a good tournament; he’s really coming along."

The T-Wolves were credited with seven blocked shots, and likely influenced several others inside as Eagle shot 20 of 61 (32.8 %) for the game.

Donovan Jones, headed to Stanford as a preferred walk-on at tight end, scored 16 points for Eagle (20-6). The Mustangs were coming off their own disappointment in the first round, losing by two to Rigby after fighting back from a 20-point first-half deficit and leading late in the game.

“Lake City’s awesome,” Eagle coach Cody Pickett said. “If they’re not the best team in the state … I don’t know. Obviously you have to win at the Idaho Center, but that team’s as talented as anybody. They’re coached fantastic. We had a chance to play them earlier in the year, and lost by two (51-49, at Eagle in December). We knew we had our work cut out for us. Our hope was to play in a state semi tonight; it could have been against those guys. We’re on the wrong side of the bracket, but that’s how this tournament works sometimes; the favorite doesn’t always win. But they’re a heckuva team.”

As it has in several games this season, Lake City scored off the opening tip, Buchanan tipping to Mitchell who fed to Hocking for a slam dunk four seconds into the game.

Lake City led 30-19 at the half, and would have been up more if not for the T-Wolves shooting just 3 of 10 from the line.

Lake City opened the fourth quarter with an 11-0 run, many of those baskets sparked by passes from Mitchell, and the T-Wolves led by as much as 57-36 with just under five minutes left.

Junior Deacon Kiesbuy, who finished with eight points off the bench, hit a 3-pointer during that decisive run. His first 3 stemmed an Eagle run after the Mustangs pulled to within 30-26 early in the third quarter.

“What Kolton said last night (after Thursday’s loss, to the media), that it’s on him, that’s just not accurate,” Winger said. “Yesterday’s on me; I didn’t have us mentally or physically ready to play. It was by far our worst analytic rating of the season … I obviously didn’t have them ready to go.”

Friday was much more like it for Lake City.

“It takes a lot of mental prowess for high school kids to come back after that,” Winger said. “We’ve had a few of those, some do that, a lot just say, let’s pack ’er up and call ’er a year. Twenty-four hours later, to come back and play that hard, I’m very happy for them.”

Johnson agreed.

“That’s not how this team is,” Johnson said. “We have a lot of character. We decided, you know what, yeah, it’s a consolation game, but we’re still going to play hard. Compared to yesterday (a 72-67 loss to the eighth-seeded Patriots), we played a lot better. We were more in tune mentally, physically. We were playing hard. I think today was good. We’re going to come back tomorrow and try to get that trophy.”

Eagle 11 8 12 22 — 53

Lake City 16 14 10 22 — 62

EAGLE — Lake 0, Madarieta 0, G. Jones 13, Pugh 0, Peters 9, Fleming 0, Elder 2, White 3, Turpin 6, Van Allen 0, D. Jones 16, Johnson 2, Stewart 2. Totals 20-61 11-16 53.

LAKE CITY — Buchanan 6, Strawn 0, Jones 2, Miller 0, Kiesbuy 8, Hocking 21, Z. Johnson 12, Mitchell 13. Totals 25-51 7-16 62.