5A REGION 1 BOYS BASKETBALL: Unbeaten Lake City takes early shot from Coeur d'Alene, then rolls to third straight regional title

By MARK NELKE

Sports editor

Coeur d’Alene landed the first shot Tuesday night, giving the Vikings and their faithful hope.

Then Lake City does what Lake City does.

The undefeated Timberwolves, ranked 25th in the nation by MaxPreps, absorbed the blow from their city rivals, then put on a transition clinic in a 32-5 second quarter en route to an 85-54 victory in the championship game of the 5A Region 1 boys basketball tournament before a near-capacity crowd estimated at 2,500 at Lake City High.

“Teams make runs all the time; it’s just how do you respond?” Lake City senior post Zach Johnson said. “When we played the Boise teams earlier in the year, they would make runs, and we would respond. It’s nothing new to us; we just trust that we’re going to play well all the way through, and we’re up 30 at halftime.”

Kolton Mitchell scored 26 points, Blake Buchanan 20 for Lake City (23-0), which won its third straight regional title, and advances to state March 2-4 at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa. The top-seeded T-Wolves will play in the final game of the day next Thursday, at 6 p.m. PST, vs. the No. 8 seed which is still to be determined.

Coeur d’Alene (15-7) will play host to Lewiston (15-7) on Thursday at 6:30 p.m. in a loser-out game. Lewiston edged visiting Post Falls (6-17) 44-42 in Tuesday’s loser-out game.

Lake City 85, Coeur d’Alene 54: Kruz Wheeler of Coeur d’Alene, who missed both meetings with Lake City during Inland Empire League play due to injury, scored the game’s first four points. And freshman Caden Symons’ 3-pointer put the Vikings up 7-3.

Lake City responded with an 11-0 run, capped by a 3 by Mitchell. But Symons and Carter Rupp each hit 3s in an 8-0 Viking run for a 15-14 lead late in the first quarter.

Lake City answered with a 16-0 run, highlighted by a tip-jam by Buchanan and a 3 by Mitchell, and suddenly it was 30-15.

“We stayed composed, which was good,” Lake City senior Deacon Kiesbuy said. “That first quarter, we were totally fine, just like the Lewiston game when it was a little bit close. We know that we can get stops and do what we need to do. And that’s what we did.”

It was 50-20 at the half.

“I thought the whole day was kind of bittersweet,” said Jim Winger, in his 24th season as Lake City coach. “A chance to win districts and get to state, but at the same time it’s these kids’ last time in the gym (for the seven seniors); it’s just very emotional … it seems like just yesterday they were playing at halftime (of the varsity game), as fifth graders.”

“Tonight worked out great; they (the Vikings) came out hot, and ready to play, and we had to adjust, and mentally get ourselves ready,” Winger added. “It went from 3 to 7 to 18 to 30 pretty fast; we can just go on runs, they happen pretty fast.”

Winger said the T-Wolves needed to put more pressure on the Vikings’ shooters, run them off the 3-point line and force them at Buchanan and the other shot-blockers, like Johnson and Nathan Hocking.

“They all had their moments, but I thought Kolton put on a show. He did some things that are just jaw-dropping; a great way to end it here. … all of them, they all had their moments, and they played their roles so well.”

A hush fell over the crowd midway through the third quarter when Buchanan, fouled from the side as he tried to shoot near the basket, hit the floor and grabbed at the back of his left leg.

Turns out, it was just his left knee locking up.

“That’s happened to me before; that’s happened my whole life,” the Virginia-bound Buchanan said. “It’s just when I get tight, from not stretching enough, my leg just kinda locks up. It goes away … I’m used to it. I knew exactly what it was; I wasn’t worried. I just knew I had to go sit down, and it would go away.”

Winger’s take when it happened?

“I wasn’t breathing,” he said. “Then he looked over at us and said, ‘It’s locked.’”

Exhale, coach.

Buchanan hobbled over to the Lake City bench, but returned less than a minute later, and played until early in the fourth quarter, when he and Mitchell were subbed out with 6:48 remaining in their final game in the Lake City gym, to the roars of the crowd.

“It was a lot, just knowing that it’s our last game here,” Mitchell said. “Man, it’s crazy to think four years ago … it’s gone by so fast. We’re not done yet; we still have three more games that we want to win, but it was awesome.”

Hocking added 10 points for Lake City, which saw all 10 players score.

“We could have gotten caught up with, ‘Oh gosh, they’re going on a run,’” Hocking said of the Vikings’ early success. “That’s just where we needed to focus in on what we do, and what we want to do.”

Rupp, a sophomore, led Coeur d’Alene with 12 points. Wheeler, a senior, added 12.

“We have new personnel with Kruz, who adds a spark, and an element of toughness and physicality,” Coeur d’Alene coach Jon Adams said. “But we have to put together four quarters. It’s tough; we know how talented we are. We come out and play them straight up for one quarter, and they are such a good transition team … Blake is such a good rebounder that it’s almost not even wise for us to go rebound with him; we need to just get back …

“It’s effort, but it’s also selflessness,” Adams said of Coeur d’Alene’s first-quarter success. “It’s moving the ball, it’s executing, it’s playing with poise, playing physical, playing aggressive. We do that in spurts; we’ve just got to be able to put that together for a longer period of time.”

Coeur d’Alene 15 5 20 14 — 54

Lake City 18 32 22 13 — 85

COEUR d’ALENE — Larson 7, Cherny 0, Booth 0, Nipp 2, Entzi 0, Rupp 13, Smith 3, Kr. Wheeler 12, Burgess 0, Symons 8, Ka. Wheeler 9.

LAKE CITY — Buchanan 20, Strawn 6, Hill 2, Watson 2, Miller 3, Kiesbuy 7, Johnson 6, Mitchell 26, Snow 3, Hocking 10.

Lewiston 44, Post Falls 42: In the end, it wasn’t for a lack of effort or intensity.

Nope, not with this group.

The Trojans rallied from a 13-point hole to cut the deficit to 41-40 in the final two minutes, before Lewiston’s Carson Way hit a pair of free throws to seal the game with 4.8 seconds remaining.

“It’s kind of the story of the season with this group,” Post Falls coach Mike McLean said. “They never had any quit. But in the second and third quarter, we just didn’t shoot it that well. We got on stretches where we miss shots we typically make. We got the same shots in the fourth quarter and made them. We kept getting stops and grinding to give us a chance, but just didn’t execute the way we’d hoped to.”

Junior Neil McCarthy scored 14 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter and junior Asher Bowie had 10 points and 10 rebounds for Post Falls, which finished 6-17.

“I thought our guys had a good gameplan,” McLean said. “We had some advantages around the past and did a good job there. We kicked the ball out, but just didn’t score. I’m happy with our execution and really happy with how we came back. A lot of teams were down 13 in the fourth quarter of a loser-out game, and the other team, having all the momentum, might have given up. But our guys battled until the final buzzer and that says a lot about them.”

Way finished with 12 points for Lewiston (15-7), which travels to Coeur d’Alene in the second-place game on Thursday.

Post Falls 10 4 7 19 — 42

Lewiston 6 10 20 9 — 44

POST FALLS — Ostlund 2, McLean 0, McCarthy 18, Shields 2, Cameron 0, McKeown 0, Blake 4, Bowie 10, Carver 6.

LEWISTON — Gomez 6, Way 12, Bramlet 4, Mader 0, White 10, Wren 0, Hottinger 9, Lawrence 4.