STATE 5A GIRLS BASKETBALL: Lake City rolls past Middleton, nearly sets record

By JASON ELLIOTT

Sports writer

NAMPA — Lake City has some pretty high goals this weekend.

They almost reached one on the tournament’s first day.

Lake City, led by seniors Avery Waddington and Sophia Zufelt with 20 points each, had four starters in double figures as the second-seeded Timberwolves rolled past the seventh-seeded Middleton Vikings 76-57 win in an opening round game in the state 5A girls basketball tournament at the Ford Idaho Center on Thursday.

Lake City was three points off a classification scoring record set by Mountain View of Meridian in 2019 (79).

“We were very locked in for the game and energetic,” Zufelt said. “The first game is usually the hardest and you’ve got to win that if you want to get a trophy at all.”

Lake City (24-2) will face third-seeded Rigby (23-2) tonight in the second semifinal at 6 PST. Middleton (20-5) will face sixth-seeded Owyhee (16-9) of Meridian in a loser-out game at Timberline High in Boise. Rigby beat Owyhee 54-33 in an opening round game.

Lake City jumped out to a 25-8 lead after the first quarter and forced five Timberline turnovers, committing none.

“We had a very good first quarter, and we knew we had to keep the energy up from that,” Zufelt said. “We just knew we had to play with a lot of energy throughout the game.”

Lake City was third in its last trip to state in 2022.

“We knew coming into the state tournament, something that can set you apart is effort and energy,” said first-year Lake City coach David Pratt, who coached at Mt. Spokane the past eight seasons. “And we give all the effort and energy on each play that we have. We set the tone early and I felt really good about that tone.”

Waddington, who will continue her playing career at Montana, also had 12 rebounds and eight assists for Lake City.

“We knew Middleton was a scrappy team,” Waddington said. “They’re really good at getting boards too, and that’s a key for them. We knew we had to box out to beat them. We could have done better, but we did enough.”

Senior KaLiah Frazey had 14 points and six rebounds and junior Sadie Zimmerman 12 points and four rebounds for Lake City, which shot 29 of 59 — 12 of 15 from the free throw line.

“These kids are so unselfish,” Pratt said. “They don’t look at the scoreboard or stats. They just want to win. They find open people and sometimes, we run it to someone because they’re hitting shots. The starting five all had really goo numbers tonight. We just worked with the mismatches we had, and it worked for us.”

Zufelt scored all 20 of her points in the first three quarters.

“They are two of the best players in the state,” Pratt said. “There’s a lot of good players, but they’re right at the top. And they feed off each other, and that makes it really cool to watch. They just find each other. And that’s special.”

Aysha Fried scored 16 points for Middleton, which had appeared in six straight 4A tournaments before moving up to the 5A classification last year. The Vikings did not qualify for state in their first year at 5A in 2023.

“We were content trading baskets,” Pratt said. “We just wanted to execute and run our stuff to get the best shot we could get. We broke down a little defensively, but credit to them for keeping that fire and fight.”

Middleton    8    16    21    12    —    57

Lake City    25    19    24    8    —    76

MIDDLETON — Z. Blackwell 15, O. Blackwell 4, Landis 0, Steele 4, Palmer 0, Wyatt 9, Flowers 7, A. Fried 16, Leavitt 2, Pietrok 0. Totals 22-58 11-15 57.

LAKE CITY — Murphey 0, Frazey 14, Pickford 8, Kolden 2, Zufelt 20, Waddington 20, Pearson 0, Zimmerman 12. Totals 29-59 12-15 76.